# Any Changes so for under Mr. Moorman?



## fulham (Dec 7, 2016)

I believe Wick Moorman has been Amtrak's President for around 3 months now. Have there been any changes regarding key positions, operating strategy or customer service that anyone has noticed? Just wondering.


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## Ryan (Dec 7, 2016)

He got the first Viewliner Diner in service!


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## Steve4031 (Dec 7, 2016)

Ice cream swapped out for date pudding.


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## JoeBas (Dec 7, 2016)

I've heard that Wick has never liked Ice Cream.


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## jis (Dec 8, 2016)

I though I saw more capacity enhancements, specially on eastern LD trains over the Thanksgiving week.


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## Palmland (Dec 8, 2016)

I think he's working on understanding the issues, interviewing his management, and then getting his organization in place. Supposedly he has brought in 5 retired senior ex NS execs as 'consultants' to help do this (this includes former COO Manion). If I was an Amtrak manager, I wouldn't be too comfortable right now.

Makes sense to work on the big issues now rather than operating details. That will come. I believe much of September Boardman was still around as Moorman was off on a prearranged trip.


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## NTL1991 (Dec 8, 2016)

I've heard the same Palmland.

Amtrak has always been top-heavy, especially in the NEC, and there have been meetings already about this. From what I've heard, he feels there are too many VPs and he would like the number reduced.

The sentiment of many front line employees has been that the company protects its management, giving yearly bonuses, while drastically cutting employees. There are many, many redundant management jobs, and many managers are rightfully worried.

It will certainly be interesting!


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## jis (Dec 8, 2016)

Well, looks like Amtrak might get in line with the rest of the industry in the management structure afterall.


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## Thirdrail7 (Dec 8, 2016)

Palmland said:


> I think he's working on understanding the issues, interviewing his management, and then getting his organization in place. Supposedly he has brought in 5 retired senior ex NS execs as 'consultants' to help do this (this includes former COO Manion). If I was an Amtrak manager, I wouldn't be too comfortable right now.
> 
> Makes sense to work on the big issues now rather than operating details. That will come. I believe much of September Boardman was still around as Moorman was off on a prearranged trip.





NTL1991 said:


> I've heard the same Palmland.
> 
> Amtrak has always been top-heavy, especially in the NEC, and there have been meetings already about this. From what I've heard, he feels there are too many VPs and he would like the number reduced.
> 
> ...





jis said:


> Well, looks like Amtrak might get in line with the rest of the industry in the management structure afterall.



And how many times have we heard this before? I'll believe it when I see it because even if it occurs, the chosen few will likely lie in wait. Mr. Moorman shouldn't have mentioned he doesn't plan to stick around for too long. Mr. Gunn marched through management like General Sherman marched through Georgia. Once he was gone, the numbers once again increased.


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## jis (Dec 8, 2016)

You're exactly right Thirdrail. In a normal sition of how bureaucracies operate I don't think Moorman will succeed. He will face what i call the "Yes Minister Syndrom" (Ref: british TV Series named "Yes Minister"), from those that have an interest in perpetuating the current setup in the face of a "Helicopter Boss". They will outlast the "Helicopter Boss", unless something truly unusual happens.

Hence my use of the word "might" instead of "will".


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## crescent-zephyr (Dec 8, 2016)

In my opinion, the #1 thing that needs to happen is better consistency of customer service. The good need to be rewarded, and the bad need to lose their seniority and possibly job. If that can't happen due to union rules, then there is no hope. If the service stays as wildly inconsistent as is it currently is, no amount of better time keeping, better food quality etc. Can fix the problem.


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## Maglev (Dec 8, 2016)

As someone who has worked in customer service for forty years, I can tell you that it is impossible to give good service if you do not have a good product delivered on time. Without costly infrastructure additions, the best way to improve the product is with better on-time performance, and this would be accomplished by negotiating with the freight railroads for better dispatching. Perhaps it is realistic for us to look to Mr. Moorman to try to achieve this.


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## crescent-zephyr (Dec 8, 2016)

Maglev said:


> As someone who has worked in customer service for forty years, I can tell you that it is impossible to give good service if you do not have a good product delivered on time. Without costly infrastructure additions, the best way to improve the product is with better on-time performance, and this would be accomplished by negotiating with the freight railroads for better dispatching. Perhaps it is realistic for us to look to Mr. Moorman to try to achieve this.


I 100% disagree. VIA rail Gave me extremely impressive customer service on a train that was 6 hours late. 
I've received equally good customer service on Amtrak trains, and service that was terrible on others.

As far as on time performance... Amtrak is doing pretty well with that currently. All the trains I took in the last month (Starlight x 2, Builder, Hoosier State, Surfliner x 2) were on time or early.


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## afigg (Dec 10, 2016)

Progressive Railroading article with interview with Coscia and Moorman: What's Next for Wick Moorman and Amtrak? No real new news in the article, but it does provide some background on how the Amtrak Chairman had to persuade Moorman to take the job CEO and what Moorman wants to accomplish. Some excerpts:



> Rather than simply "sharpening our lobbying effort" to hit up Congress for a larger appropriation, Coscia says, the board thought it would be better to spend more time convincing stakeholders that the railroad serves the public well with the limited resources that it has.
> 
> "No one invests in a company that isn't well run," Coscia says. "And our feeling was that a lot of progress had been made at Amtrak under Joe Boardman's tenure, and [his retirement] was an opportunity to build on that and create a very, very well-run company."
> 
> ...


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## jis (Dec 10, 2016)

I think a good test of Mr. Moorman would be to see if he disowns the "Food Service profitable within x number of years" pledge and starts doing more reasonable things with food service. I always look for real action. Words are always cheap. I have very little faith in words not backed by action. But it is reasonable to wait upto a year to see what unfolds before coming to any conclusions, this way or that.

This would really be an acid test because the action on the Star was actually taken behind Mr. Boardman's back by the CFO according to several rumbles heard at various places. If that is the case then this would be a test to see if the CFO runs the company or Mr. Moorman does. many a company has been destroyed by mindless accountants running the company into ground. They are really good at it as a matter of fact.


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## neroden (Dec 10, 2016)

jis said:


> This would really be an acid test because the action on the Star was actually taken behind Mr. Boardman's back by the CFO according to several rumbles heard at various places.


Ouch, that rumor is new to me.


> If that is the case then this would be a test to see if the CFO runs the company or Mr. Moorman does. many a company has been destroyed by mindless accountants running the company into ground. They are really good at it as a matter of fact.


Bombardier outsourcing streetcar components to Mexican factories which are unable to meet quality standards comes to mind, from just a year or two ago...


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## west point (Dec 10, 2016)

:



> Rather than simply "sharpening our lobbying effort" to hit up Congress for a larger appropriation, Coscia says, the board thought it would be better to spend more time convincing stakeholders that the railroad serves the public well with the limited resources that it has.
> 
> "No one invests in a company that isn't well run," Coscia says. ......


Coscia may be on the correct track. Maintenance appears being shorted causing many late originations and enroute failures. We have no idea for sure but it seems that Amtrak suffers from both shortage of maintenance personnel and more importantly lack of parts. Every monthly performance report shows the overhaul maintenance of cars delayed for lack of parts. Even more important is the lack of parts for loco work at Beech Grove especially the replacement of traction trucks.

If Amtrak can reduce its internally caused delays and cancellations then the moral of the employees would be expected to improve and those employees would transfer that to passengers. ( not all of course )Then the freight RRs would have more accountability for delays.

Of course more equipment will give more continuous maintenance time without having to send equipment out before all deficient items can be fixed.


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## FormerOBS (Dec 17, 2016)

I've been away from the Forum for a while & was hoping to hear more about Mr. Moorman's experiences riding around the country. I guess he must be finished with that, but I hope he resumes some time soon. I have it on very good authority that he has not ridden the Auto Train or talked to veteran Auto Train employees. If he does, he can get a pretty good before-and-after view of the degradation of a once-great train. The Auto Train used to be at the top in terms of customer satisfaction, and at the bottom in terms of customer complaints. Those have been reversed. Passenger loadings are down in comparison with seasonal norms for other years. There are reasons for this, and Mr. Moorman can find out those reasons if he talks to some veteran Auto Train employees. I can direct him to some good people if he wants to contact me.

I say this as an Auto Train retiree who was always proud of my train, and is saddened by the changes wrought since the beginning of 2014. Note that I say "my" train, In the past, all of us at the Auto Train had a sense of ownership and personal investment in that train. That has been destroyed by Management. My friends all tell me I retired at just the right time, so I didn't have to be there to see it and experience it first hand.

Tom


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## Palmetto (Dec 17, 2016)

It would seem to me the CEO trumps the CFO when it comes to decisions, even if a decision is taken behind the CEO's back. One wonders, then, why the CEO did not reverse the CFO's decision--unless he agreed with it, which is quite plausible.


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## John Bredin (Dec 19, 2016)

jis said:


> I think a good test of Mr. Moorman would be to see if he disowns the "Food Service profitable within x number of years" pledge and starts doing more reasonable things with food service. I always look for real action. Words are always cheap. I have very little faith in words not backed by action. But it is reasonable to wait upto a year to see what unfolds before coming to any conclusions, this way or that.


*Doing* more reasonable things with food service = good. *Explicitly* disowning the profitability goal = defying Congress* for the feel-good sake of defying Congress = bad. IMHO. The mirror image of "words are cheap" is that certain words can be damned expensive too.

*Yes, many in Congress are not anti-Amtrak or anti-Amtrak-food-service. And many of the people who oppose/vilify Amtrak as a waste of money because it's not profitable are not in Congress. But as shorthand for "a faction in government that casts a cold eye on any federal spending on Amtrak because it's not profitable and profitability is, to them, the by-all and end-all of existence" it's handy.


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## cirdan (Dec 19, 2016)

John Bredin said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > I think a good test of Mr. Moorman would be to see if he disowns the "Food Service profitable within x number of years" pledge and starts doing more reasonable things with food service. I always look for real action. Words are always cheap. I have very little faith in words not backed by action. But it is reasonable to wait upto a year to see what unfolds before coming to any conclusions, this way or that.
> ...


This, exactly.


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## west point (Dec 19, 2016)

Sounds like a Hobson's choice.

1. If not profitable can Amtrak

2. If profitable then sell it to private interests ?

3. Of course both views ignore the heavy capital infrastructure needed. That's not the Wall street model.t 4


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## A Voice (Dec 19, 2016)

John Bredin said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > I think a good test of Mr. Moorman would be to see if he disowns the "Food Service profitable within x number of years" pledge and starts doing more reasonable things with food service. I always look for real action. Words are always cheap. I have very little faith in words not backed by action. But it is reasonable to wait upto a year to see what unfolds before coming to any conclusions, this way or that.
> ...


Disowning the (food service) profitability goal - which needs to be done because it is both misguided and unattainable - and defying Congress are not necessarily the same thing. Granted, antagonistic defiance of those who hold the purse strings is a very bad idea, but that's not what is being suggested; It would be far worse to continue to mislead that same Congress with a strategy which is inherently unworkable. George ("glide path to self sufficiency") Warrington tried that once, and David Gunn had to come clean up the mess.

There is a saying that the cover up is always worse than the original transgression. Much better to work with Congress (often behind the scenes) on appropriate and sound goals toward an efficient and financially responsible Amtrak than to pursue an impossible goal only to fail in the final analysis. The potential damage done to Amtrak's "transportation product" in such an attempt - and the political fallout from having to explain the eventual failure to a hostile Congressional committee - could have repercussions for years.


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## TiBike (Dec 21, 2016)

I don't understand why dining car service can't be evaluated like any other product Amtrak offers. If it turns an operating profit by itself, great, keep it. If reducing dining car costs – cutting back on service or scrapping it altogether – has a disproportionate impact on ticket review (e.g. for every $1 of food service expense cut, ticket revenue drops by $2, say), then keep it as is. If raising prices brings it into the black, raise away. But if it's a money loser, can't be fixed and it doesn't have a meaningful impact on ticket revenue, cut it, scrap it or contract it out and take it off the books.


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## FormerOBS (Dec 21, 2016)

Amtrak is tied inextricably to Government, unless something happens to change it fundamentally. We're back to the old argument between those who want to run Government like a business ((i.e., at a profit) and those who want to run Government like a Government (i.e., in the public interest). There is no treason a Government Agency can't be run in a responsible way, without excessive waste. But if the fares are affordable, you won't run good passenger service (including all appropriate services, such as food service) at a profit, just as the Interstate Highways don't operate at a profit.

Tom


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## crescent-zephyr (Dec 21, 2016)

TiBike said:


> I don't understand why dining car service can't be evaluated like any other product Amtrak offers. If it turns an operating profit by itself, great, keep it. If reducing dining car costs cutting back on service or scrapping it altogether has a disproportionate impact on ticket review (e.g. for every $1 of food service expense cut, ticket revenue drops by $2, say), then keep it as is. If raising prices brings it into the black, raise away. But if it's a money loser, can't be fixed and it doesn't have a meaningful impact on ticket revenue, cut it, scrap it or contract it out and take it off the books.


With that mentality.. All Amtrak long distance trains will be scrapped. None make a profit.


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## TiBike (Dec 21, 2016)

There's a point where government subsidies should stop. If you take Interstate highways as an example, that point might be "above the rails" for Amtrak. Subsidise the track, bridges and other basic infrastructure, then run the railroad on the basis of value given for value received. If there are special reasons to subsidise service – service to isolated rural communities, traffic reduction in urban areas – then, fine, go for it. But there's a point where you stop providing extras if people don't value those extras sufficiently to pay the cost. Or alternatively, you raise prices and/or cut costs to the point where cost and revenue are in balance. Or find another company that doesn't have Amtrak's cost structure and let them make a go of it. Dining car meals are a good example of that.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Dec 21, 2016)

crescent-zephyr said:


> TiBike said:
> 
> 
> > I don't understand why dining car service can't be evaluated like any other product Amtrak offers. If it turns an operating profit by itself, great, keep it. If reducing dining car costs cutting back on service or scrapping it altogether has a disproportionate impact on ticket review (e.g. for every $1 of food service expense cut, ticket revenue drops by $2, say), then keep it as is. If raising prices brings it into the black, raise away. But if it's a money loser, can't be fixed and it doesn't have a meaningful impact on ticket revenue, cut it, scrap it or contract it out and take it off the books.
> ...


A lot of state supported trains don't make a profit either.


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## neroden (Dec 22, 2016)

crescent-zephyr said:


> TiBike said:
> 
> 
> > I don't understand why dining car service can't be evaluated like any other product Amtrak offers. If it turns an operating profit by itself, great, keep it. If reducing dining car costs cutting back on service or scrapping it altogether has a disproportionate impact on ticket review (e.g. for every $1 of food service expense cut, ticket revenue drops by $2, say), then keep it as is. If raising prices brings it into the black, raise away. But if it's a money loser, can't be fixed and it doesn't have a meaningful impact on ticket revenue, cut it, scrap it or contract it out and take it off the books.
> ...


Actually, 6 out of the 15 long distance trains make a PROFIT, in terms of revenues minus actual running costs. More of them make a profit each year as ridership goes up. They don't cover fixed overhead costs because there aren't enough of them. Congress doesn't even understand *this*, though Boardman did attempt to explain it to them. It's even harder to explain that the Capitol Limited feeds passengers to other trains, so even though it doesn't make a direct profit, if it were cancelled Amtrak would probably lose more money due to lost ticket sales on other trains.
(If you're curious: all the Viewliner trains except the Cardinal make a profit. The Cardinal would too if it were daily. The Auto Train makes a profit. Based on recent trends I expect the Coast Starlight to make a profit next year, and the Empire Builder probably in 2018. Of the remainder, it's harder to predict which train will go into profit next: the CZ and the SWC have been seeing the fastest growth in revenues-minus-direct-costs; the CONO and CL start with smaller deficits to make up but have seen low growth. The Texas Eagle and Sunset Limited will take longer.)

I'll tell you, TBike, what the problem is. The problem is that it is very hard to *demonstrate* the degree to which crappy food service is driving away customers and reducing ticket income. There are so many variables affecting ticket income that the best you can do is make an educated guess. I'm quite certain that crapifying the food service is losing more money in tickets than it saves in costs, but how do I *prove* it?

FWIW I don't feel that it's appropriate to ask train service to make enough of a profit to cover overhead. Drivers do not cover the overhead of the roads; that's paid for out of general taxation, which covers road repairs, maintenance, police (traffic cops), snowplowing, etc. etc. Trains cover a ridiculous amount of overhead already, more than they should. The long-distance trains already have part of the overhead of track maintenance included in "direct costs"; it's part of the contracts with the freight railroads. So they don't cover an arbitrary allocated percentage of the cost of having a national reservations system; why should they cover any of that? Airlines don't cover the full cost of Air Traffic Control and never have, airports are generally paid for by local governments, etc.


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## willem (Dec 22, 2016)

neroden said:


> Drivers do not cover the overhead of the roads; that's paid for out of general taxation, which covers road repairs, maintenance, police (traffic cops), snowplowing, etc. etc. Trains cover a ridiculous amount of overhead already, more than they should. The long-distance trains already have part of the overhead of track maintenance included in "direct costs"; it's part of the contracts with the freight railroads. [...] Airlines don't cover the full cost of Air Traffic Control and never have, airports are generally paid for by local governments, etc.


Thank you, *neroden*, for saying what I was trying to put into words until I reached your post. You are right.

With regard to the roads, big trucks cause almost all the damage but pay for a fraction of the upkeep. As noted, the airlines get the infrastructure they need at a small portion of the cost of that infrastructure. Why does Congress think Amtrak should be so different?


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## jis (Dec 22, 2016)

neroden said:


> FWIW I don't feel that it's appropriate to ask train service to make enough of a profit to cover overhead. Drivers do not cover the overhead of the roads; that's paid for out of general taxation, which covers road repairs, maintenance, police (traffic cops), snowplowing, etc. etc. Trains cover a ridiculous amount of overhead already, more than they should. The long-distance trains already have part of the overhead of track maintenance included in "direct costs"; it's part of the contracts with the freight railroads. So they don't cover an arbitrary allocated percentage of the cost of having a national reservations system; why should they cover any of that? Airlines don't cover the full cost of Air Traffic Control and never have, airports are generally paid for by local governments, etc.


I agree wholly with this.
I am though at a loss on how to reverse this trend until we manage to get more people to ride and experience trains with proper service, which of course takes resources. A bit of a Catch 22 we are in.


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## TiBike (Dec 22, 2016)

neroden said:


> I'll tell you, TBike, what the problem is. The problem is that it is very hard to *demonstrate* the degree to which crappy food service is driving away customers and reducing ticket income. There are so many variables affecting ticket income that the best you can do is make an educated guess. I'm quite certain that crapifying the food service is losing more money in tickets than it saves in costs, but how do I *prove* it?


Amtrak is, in effect, running an experiment that could help answer the question. IIRC, they've eliminated dining car service on the Cardinal and replaced it with some kind of enhanced cafe car service. A comparison with past revenue performance on the Cardinal and over the same time period with similar routes that have kept dining car service should give some kind of idea. Passenger surveys - on the Cardinal and on similar routes - should also provide a useful comparison.

Another analysis they could do is compare revenue/operating profit on state-run trains with superior cafe service (Capitol Corridor and Surfliner are examples, and I bet there're others) and the standard Amtrak long distance cafe cars. That would give some idea about the impact of crapifying the food. Should be able to learn something from a comparison to VIA Rail too.

I agree that the proper benchmark shouldn't be whether Amtrak covers all of its overhead. But it's a fair question to ask whether particular aspects of its service – dining cars, baggage cars, station lounges for example – result in a net contribution to overhead or require additional subsidies.


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## jis (Dec 22, 2016)

TiBike said:


> neroden said:
> 
> 
> > I'll tell you, TBike, what the problem is. The problem is that it is very hard to *demonstrate* the degree to which crappy food service is driving away customers and reducing ticket income. There are so many variables affecting ticket income that the best you can do is make an educated guess. I'm quite certain that crapifying the food service is losing more money in tickets than it saves in costs, but how do I *prove* it?
> ...


Surely you meant to say the Silver Star perhaps? Cardinal actually still has Diner service though a restricted one. It is Silver Star that lost all Diner service. And the comparison would be between the Star without Diner with an enhanced Cafe menu, and the Meteor with full Diner service I would think.


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## TiBike (Dec 22, 2016)

Thanks, yes, that's what I meant to say :wacko: . I was too lazy to go back and check through the threads.

You're right – those two trains would make for a great comparison. Maybe Amtrak had that in mind when they did it? Too much to hope?


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## Ryan (Dec 22, 2016)

If you want your argument to be taken seriously, you may want to expend the moderate amount of effort require to get the basic facts right.

Amtrak's hand was forced, when they didn't have sufficient diners to support the trains with them. The Star is a logical choice since anyone that really feels strongly about the dining car can take the Meteor - IF the schedule works equally well for them and they're not going somewhere exclusively served by the Star.

For those reasons, a comparison between the two trains isn't going to be perfect - there are a lot of factors that impact who rides what. Personally, I almost always take the Meteor when I head south, because the later departure better facilitates a complete workday before leaving.


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## TiBike (Dec 22, 2016)

I didn't say it was a perfect comparison. But it's good enough – great enough – to be very useful. It doesn't matter why they did it, but they should have realised it was a real world experiment and taken advantage of the opportunity.

Amtrak is doing passenger surveys – I got one recently about business class service on the Coast Starlight. If they survey customers on both routes and ask them why they picked one over the other, that'll give them a fair idea of how passengers value dining car service.

At the risk of not being taken seriously (can't imagine that on the Internet) I'll assume without checking that there's a price differential for sleeper service, and that differential has varied according to passenger load. If that differential is small and/or has narrowed over time, that's another indication that dining car service isn't highly valued.


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## jis (Dec 22, 2016)

In my experience if taking the two trains from time to time, the differential on an average has not changed.


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## TiBike (Dec 22, 2016)

jis said:


> In my experience if taking the two trains from time to time, the differential on an average has not changed.



Is the differential proportionate to the value of the meals?


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## A Voice (Dec 22, 2016)

TiBike said:


> I didn't say it was a perfect comparison. But it's good enough – great enough – to be very useful.


It's just not that simple, frankly; There are too many intangibles at work here. Regardless though, a just 'good enough' study has too many holes in it to ever derive meaningful and significant conclusions from the data. Simply put, the two trains are not a direct comparison to begin with; They serve too many different markets, on vastly differing schedules, to properly control for, and there are two day trains serving major portions of the common route. Several major origin and destination points would see different meal periods - or none at all - traversed by the schedules of the four trains. Lounge car fare may be acceptable for lunch, but perhaps not dinner (or similar).


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## jis (Dec 22, 2016)

TiBike said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > In my experience if taking the two trains from time to time, the differential on an average has not changed.
> ...


No. Not in all cases. Then again neither was the markup in Sleeper prices when compulsory meal was introduced. It is just a clever marketing scheme to charge way more for the same service anyway, specially for single travelers.


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## keelhauled (Dec 22, 2016)

neroden said:


> I'll tell you, TBike, what the problem is. The problem is that it is very hard to *demonstrate* the degree to which crappy food service is driving away customers and reducing ticket income. There are so many variables affecting ticket income that the best you can do is make an educated guess. I'm quite certain that crapifying the food service is losing more money in tickets than it saves in costs, but how do I *prove* it?


I'll take a crack at it. Per Amtrak's September monthly report (https://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/515/889/Amtrak-Monthly-Performance-Report-September-2016-Preliminary-Unaudited.pdf), the Star's revenue was down from $33.1 to $29.3 million year over year, or a decline of $3.8 million. Costs are down from $77 million in FY 2015 to $63.1 in FY 2016, a savings of $13.9 million. During the same period, the Meteor's cost savings were $2.8 million, so it seems the diner cost slightly over $10 million to run. So Amtrak comes out ahead by about $6 million for the year. Even more interestingly, total sleeper revenue for the Star in FY 2015 was a little over $8 million, declining to $7.1 million in FY 2016, so every penny in sleeper revenue and then some went to paying for the diner.

You can also compare the Meteor's $1.4 million revenue drop to the Star's, and say that not all of the Star's revenue losses came from losing the diner, which makes the change even more in Amtrak's favor--then it becomes $2.4 million revenue decline compared to $10 million in savings. These numbers also all assume that both coach and sleeper passengers were scared away by the lack of diner, and if you look at the sleeper numbers in isolation, then since sleeper revenue dropped by about $950k maybe the diner is only actually worth ~$1 million of revenue? Some coach passengers choose (or chose) to eat in the diner, to be sure, but my own hunch is that sleeper passengers were much more inclined to avoid the Star without a diner than coach passengers.

In any case, the three values of the revenue worth of the diner I came up with were $3.8 million, $2.4 million, and $1 million, all against an operating cost of $10 million. I don't see any scenario in which Amtrak didn't win.


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## dlagrua (Dec 22, 2016)

Getting away from the discussion above, I see a great challenge ahead for Mr. Moorman in getting proposed new routes opened. There are advocacy groups for a daily Cardinal like all aboard Ohio that is also pushing for new train service on part of the old PRR mainline which would route through Lima, Columbus, Ft Wayne, Valparaiso, Gary and on to Chicago. Then there is the old Sunset Route from NOL to ORL that needs to be reopened.

Lets hope that the incoming administration is not hampered by Congress going forward.


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## west point (Dec 22, 2016)

One comparison of the STAR and Meteor may be this past Thanksgiving season. The Star kept its usual consist of 3 - 4 coaches and 2 sleepers. The Meteor on the other hand had up to 4 sleepers and 5 - 6 coaches. There were some days Meteor had 13 cars. Now that is not a complete parallel as there are different north and south Carolina stations. Plus the extra Tamps stations for the Star. Star did have a few more sell outs but with the restricted consist ? ?

If appears that on this dual service ( actually there is also the Palmetto ) routes there is requirements for both diner lite ( or just snacks ) and full service diners. The full service diners do suffer from enough diner crews and the inability to restock enroute and often exclude coach passengers due to lack of meals. There were several reports of same during Thanksgiving.

Note adding the Meteor and Palmetto riders together gives some indications but just what ?


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## Ryan (Dec 22, 2016)

That raises a good point - Amtrak can (intentionally or not) put their fingers on the scale, so to speak, by altering consist lengths. Changing the available supply will shift the ridership and revenue numbers, so unless any of us have consistently tracked the consist length of both trains before and after the diner loss, the conclusions we draw will be potentially skewed...


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## Seaboard92 (Dec 23, 2016)

The palmetto if I remember right in thanksgiving peak season was also longer by a coach or two.


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## JoeBas (Dec 23, 2016)

TiBike said:


> I don't understand why dining car service can't be evaluated like any other product Amtrak offers. .. But if it's a money loser, can't be fixed and it doesn't have a meaningful impact on ticket revenue, cut it, scrap it or contract it out and take it off the books.


By that reasoning, the trains should stop altogether. Now.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Dec 23, 2016)

JoeBas said:


> TiBike said:
> 
> 
> > I don't understand why dining car service can't be evaluated like any other product Amtrak offers. .. But if it's a money loser, can't be fixed and it doesn't have a meaningful impact on ticket revenue, cut it, scrap it or contract it out and take it off the books.
> ...


Big difference between providing train service (Amtrak's primary goal) and providing "better" meal service. Amtrak steaks should not be a requirement on Amtrak trains and something taxpayers should have to pay for when cafe car food is acceptable to many passengers.


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## TiBike (Dec 23, 2016)

keelhauled said:


> In any case, the three values of the revenue worth of the diner I came up with were $3.8 million, $2.4 million, and $1 million, all against an operating cost of $10 million. I don't see any scenario in which Amtrak didn't win.


Thanks, those are good numbers. Amtrak would have much better insight into the details, but it clearly supports the hypothesis that the cost of providing diner service is more than its value to passengers. Maybe a lot more. If a detailed internal analysis showed more or less the same thing, the next step would be for Amtrak to test the hypothesis by eliminating diner service on another route to see if the effect is duplicated. Or passengers surveys and other primary market research might tell them all they need to know.

If Moorman is in fact approaching Amtrak as a business and not as a government department, my bet is that we'll see less diner service over the coming year.


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## crescent-zephyr (Dec 23, 2016)

What those numbers do not show is the long term effect that it has on ridership. I personally think consistent customer service is the #1 way to win long-term customers. After that... providing good quality food and beverage service should be the next priority. That doesn't have to mean full service dining cars, but I don't think any passengers are fully satisfied with the current offering on the City of New Orleans, Silver Star, Lakeshore, and Cardinal.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Dec 23, 2016)

crescent-zephyr said:


> What those numbers do not show is the long term effect that it has on ridership. I personally think consistent customer service is the #1 way to win long-term customers. After that... providing good quality food and beverage service should be the next priority. That doesn't have to mean full service dining cars, but I don't think any passengers are fully satisfied with the current offering on the City of New Orleans, Silver Star, Lakeshore, and Cardinal.


Well I've been on the Lakeshore. At the time they did have the full dining car and menu but I only ate cafe car food and I was satisfied with the available food. Considering the limited space available in diner cars many coach passengers may not even get a chance to eat in the diner car (well it's usually available for breakfast, I know they take reservations for lunch and assign times for dinner). You think they're all not satisfied? Plus if you're a coach passenger the diner car prices can be twice as expensive than the cafe car. Not everyone on the Lakeshore or other LD train is a sleeper passenger with meals included. I'll be willing to bet you an Amtrak steak that plenty of LD passengers can live with cafe car food and don't have to have Amtrak steaks to enjoy the ride.


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## willem (Dec 23, 2016)

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> Big difference between providing train service (Amtrak's primary goal) and providing "better" meal service. Amtrak steaks should not be a requirement on Amtrak trains and something taxpayers should have to pay for when cafe car food is acceptable to many passengers.


I'll go along with no subsidized steaks, but I would like the food offerings to be consistent with government recommendations for a healthy diet. My impression of the cafe car, where I have rarely eaten, is that it has mostly high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar, low-nutrition stuff.

This is not to say that the dining car food is particularly healthy, just that I would like healthy food available at a price competitive with other available food.


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## A Voice (Dec 23, 2016)

keelhauled said:


> neroden said:
> 
> 
> > I'll tell you, TBike, what the problem is. The problem is that it is very hard to *demonstrate* the degree to which crappy food service is driving away customers and reducing ticket income. There are so many variables affecting ticket income that the best you can do is make an educated guess. I'm quite certain that crapifying the food service is losing more money in tickets than it saves in costs, but how do I *prove* it?
> ...


Where are you getting $10 million to operate the dining car per year? Remember the diner is not the only thing the Silver Star lost, there was also formerly a second locomotive. That saves money too, it's not just the diner. I'd really like to see numbers (anyone?) on what that costs annually, because those savings combined with the revenue loss greatly closes the gap between dining car expenses and income (when revenue loss is considered).



west point said:


> One comparison of the STAR and Meteor may be this past Thanksgiving season. The Star kept its usual consist of 3 - 4 coaches and 2 sleepers. The Meteor on the other hand had up to 4 sleepers and 5 - 6 coaches. There were some days Meteor had 13 cars. Now that is not a complete parallel as there are different north and south Carolina stations. Plus the extra Tamps stations for the Star. Star did have a few more sell outs but with the restricted consist ? ?
> 
> If appears that on this dual service ( actually there is also the Palmetto ) routes there is requirements for both diner lite ( or just snacks ) and full service diners. The full service diners do suffer from enough diner crews and the inability to restock enroute and often exclude coach passengers due to lack of meals. There were several reports of same during Thanksgiving.
> 
> Note adding the Meteor and Palmetto riders together gives some indications but just what ?


Amtrak directly controls both train capacity and pricing, along with other factors (marketing, amenities, etc.), and this can make a tremendous difference in both revenue and allocated costs.



Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> JoeBas said:
> 
> 
> > TiBike said:
> ...


Nobody has said steaks are a requirement, that's a straw-man argument. What is a requirement, for trains which are on the move for many hours or even several days, is food service of reasonable price, selection, and quality. Lounge (cafe) car fare may be acceptable, but is it desirable; Is it something which will make people more likely to travel by train (because ticket revenue is far more important than cafe sales) or rather dissuade potential passengers? Point is, you cannot look at food service in isolation. Plenty of (often first-class) travel options in all modes of travel (train, plane, ship, etc.) offer complimentary meals, which is more than made up in higher ticket prices.

Does it not seem strange to anyone else that an organization which loses money and thus needs all the revenue it can possibly get would pursue a business plan which calls for reduced fares (and hence revenue)? Wouldn't you instead expect the company to offer greater amenities and services so it can command higher ticket prices? You cannot make food service a profit center (or break-even), that's impossible regardless of what Joe Boardman told Congress, so the amenity should be used to drive higher revenue and improved customer service (not something just 'acceptable' that people put up with).



Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> crescent-zephyr said:
> 
> 
> > What those numbers do not show is the long term effect that it has on ridership. I personally think consistent customer service is the #1 way to win long-term customers. After that... providing good quality food and beverage service should be the next priority. That doesn't have to mean full service dining cars, but I don't think any passengers are fully satisfied with the current offering on the City of New Orleans, Silver Star, Lakeshore, and Cardinal.
> ...


Plenty of LD passengers could _live_ with an unsedated colonoscopy instead of dinner, but that doesn't mean it would make them satisfied passengers who will return and tell everyone what a great way trains are to travel. Just because you were satisfied with lounge car food doesn't mean _everybody_ else was.

Granted, the dining car service could really use more coach passengers as customers (assuming adequate capacity; perhaps extended service hours). if Amtrak truly wants to 'experiment' with food service options (in principle, that's a good thing) then it should include tests to increase dining car revenue, and not solely ways to cut costs.


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## crescent-zephyr (Dec 23, 2016)

A Voice seems to get it....

I survived riding the City of New Orleans with severely cut back diner service.... the food was edible. But it is a huge factor when planning future trips on that route. Also, when fellow travelers ask me about that route, I tell them about the cut back diner service. It seems to discourage them as well.


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## fulham (Dec 23, 2016)

After reading all the comments regarding dining car service it is clear their are various opinions on the subject.

First I do not think that eliminating steaks from the diner is going to have much of an impact on anyone's taxes.

Second, Amtrak has brand new diners coming on line that are set up to prepare meals as opposed to just heating them up. To go back and reconfigure the kitchen portion of the cars so they would be similar to an airline galley would probably be very expensive.

Third, once the diners all come on line and are being used, Amtrak management needs to do a better job of utilizing the cars to maximize revenue. On Amtrak trains the dining car experience can be inconsistent. It all depends on the crew. The key, and this is going to be tough from a management standpoint, is to get the crews to get as many people on the train to use the diner as possible. None of the "sleeping car passengers only" mentality, not announcing last call, closing the car to far in advance of endpoint arrivals, etc. Maybe have specials for coach passengers...offer take-out service...let passengers pre-book meals in advance...find a way to be creative. Sure not all passengers will use the diner for all meals (me included) but again find ways to maximize revenue. The V-II diners appear to be very nice cars. Amtrak needs to take advantage of this and promote them accordingly.


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## TiBike (Dec 23, 2016)

A Voice said:


> Does it not seem strange to anyone else that an organization which loses money and thus needs all the revenue it can possibly get would pursue a business plan which calls for reduced fares (and hence revenue)? Wouldn't you instead expect the company to offer greater amenities and services so it can command higher ticket prices? You cannot make food service a profit center (or break-even), that's impossible regardless of what Joe Boardman told Congress, so the amenity should be used to drive higher revenue and improved customer service (not something just 'acceptable' that people put up with).


Amtrak doesn't need more revenue, it needs more profit. If you reduce expenses by more than you're reducing revenue, then you're increasing profit. There's a limit to that, as many people have pointed out, but unprofitable amenities, like dining car service, that are intended to drive core revenue, like ticket sales, should be evaluated on that basis.

I don't think there's anything Amtrak can do to make dining car service profitable – its labor costs are too high. It could try for the best of both worlds by subbing out food service to a company with a better cost structure, but it can't do it with current staffing and compensation levels.

Reducing fares would not necessarily reduce revenue. Look up price elasticity of demand. If disproportionately more people buy something at a lower price (i.e. the demand for that something is elastic), then total revenue will go up. That's a particularly important consideration in a high fixed cost business, like railroads. Amtrak knows that – that's what fare buckets are all about.


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## Ryan (Dec 23, 2016)

That assumes that supply is unconstrained. It isn't.


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## A Voice (Dec 23, 2016)

TiBike said:


> A Voice said:
> 
> 
> > Does it not seem strange to anyone else that an organization which loses money and thus needs all the revenue it can possibly get would pursue a business plan which calls for reduced fares (and hence revenue)? Wouldn't you instead expect the company to offer greater amenities and services so it can command higher ticket prices? You cannot make food service a profit center (or break-even), that's impossible regardless of what Joe Boardman told Congress, so the amenity should be used to drive higher revenue and improved customer service (not something just 'acceptable' that people put up with).
> ...


You're assuming that profit is the objective, rather than providing a valuable and important public transportation service. No Amtrak route or service - including Acela - is truly profitable, nor should that be the ultimate goal. That said, Amtrak certainly should use its taxpayer funding wisely and efficiently, but again, don't look at food service in isolation. We're not talking about subsidizing someone's meal; Rather, the question should be what level of amenities support a reasonable fare structure for the most (financially) efficient operation.



> There's a limit to that, as many people have pointed out, but unprofitable amenities, like dining car service, that are intended to drive core revenue, like ticket sales, should be evaluated on that basis.


Again, food service is not intended to be a profit center, and you cannot properly evaluate it as such, any more than you can air conditioning or the restrooms.



> Reducing fares would not necessarily reduce revenue. Look up price elasticity of demand. If disproportionately more people buy something at a lower price (i.e. the demand for that something is elastic), then total revenue will go up. That's a particularly important consideration in a high fixed cost business, like railroads.


It does when there is a finite supply of the commodity, and you can otherwise sell-out inventory (or close to it) at the higher price. This is a particular problem on Amtrak, which seems to be chronically short of equipment for years and years. Particularly with single-level (Viewliner I) sleepers, you're basically limited to the same two cars regardless of the level of demand (so rooms tend to be sold in the higher fare buckets). Thus, when fares were reduced to match the loss of the dining car amenity, _it did indeed cause a reduction in revenue_. If Amtrak ever had more equipment, then what you suggest could work, producing a better financial result (still not 'more profit', but rather smaller losses). However, that question opens the debate of how many hundreds of millions taxpayer dollars do you want to spend buying more cars to meet demand, which although it will improve the finances, at the end of the day the train will still require an operating subsidy (based on fully allocated costs).


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## neroden (Dec 24, 2016)

keelhauled said:


> neroden said:
> 
> 
> > I'll tell you, TBike, what the problem is. The problem is that it is very hard to *demonstrate* the degree to which crappy food service is driving away customers and reducing ticket income. There are so many variables affecting ticket income that the best you can do is make an educated guess. I'm quite certain that crapifying the food service is losing more money in tickets than it saves in costs, but how do I *prove* it?
> ...


Good crack at it, but unfortunately those "costs" include ALLOCATED costs. We have no evidence yet that the removed "costs" are all *real* removed costs. How much did allocated costs increase on the *other* trains? If you subtracted out *the sum total of all increases in costs on all the other trains* and you still had a drop in costs, then you might have a convincing lower bound on the cost for operating the dining car. Meanwhile, the $10 million number may be no more than a Wild Ass Guess by Amtrak based on its notoriously ridiculous allocations. I believe that it is and I believe that it is at least twice the real incremental cost.

So, if you want to convince me, try harder. A bottom-up estimate of dining car costs (based on staffing expenses) would be more convincing, for example. Every time I do such an estimate I come up with a number much, much lower than $10 million -- more in the $2-4 million range. It's hard enough to do the estimates that it might be $5 or $6 million, but not $10. There are allocations involved in that $10, I'm pretty sure. Of course another possibility is that the Heritage cars had insanely high maintenance costs, but that wouldn't reflect on the economics of dining cars in general either.

Anyway, I was actually referring to the *crapification* of dining car service. The complete removal of a dining car potentially saves money. Failing to stock the dining car properly, failing to provide a decent menu, using plastic instead of china, is crapificication. That *doesn't* save money and it costs lots of revenue.

(P.S. It's absolutely true that if you can completely remove a commissary and crew base, you may really be able to cut costs substantially by removing a dining car. This obviously was not the case on the Silver Star, where actual savings were strictly operations and maintenance costs. )


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## neroden (Dec 24, 2016)

fulham said:


> The key, and this is going to be tough from a management standpoint, is to get the crews to get as many people on the train to use the diner as possible. None of the "sleeping car passengers only" mentality, not announcing last call, closing the car to far in advance of endpoint arrivals, etc.


Yes, this is very important. Since most of the dining car costs are fixed, the key is to spread the costs over the maximum number of customers.
And step one is STOP UNDERSTOCKING. It's critically important that the dining car *not run out of food*.


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## neroden (Dec 24, 2016)

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> Big difference between providing train service (Amtrak's primary goal) and providing "better" meal service. Amtrak steaks should not be a requirement on Amtrak trains and something taxpayers should have to pay for when cafe car food is acceptable to many passengers.


Taxpayers aren't paying for steak. In fact every steak I buy on Amtrak is subsidizing coach passengers (I'd estimate about $10/steak in subsidy from me to coach passengers). So, I'm happy to relieve your worries on that count!
It is really annoying how many people don't understand how to do accounting properly. The difference between fixed costs and variable costs is fundamental on so many levels, and many people seem unable to get it through their heads. It is *particularly* key to railroads, which have unusually high fixed costs and unusually low variable costs compared to most businesses. The process of evaluating something vs. the alternative seems to be lost on most people.

It *is* accurate to say that taxpayers are subsidizing the almost-population-free route of the Southwest Chief through northern New Mexico and western Kansas, because it could run on the Transcon route through Amarillo faster, for lower costs, more passengers, and higher revenue.

It is inaccurate to say that taxpayers are "subsidizing" steak. Removal of steak would simply reduce gross profit margin (revenue - incremental cost), reduce volume of sales, and as a result would be bad for the bottom line. Just like removal of the nut and fruit desserts removed sales and gained nothing.

To get back to the topic, Wick Moorman has a decent understanding of the economics of railroads and I'm sure he understands how economies of scale work, but I don't know if he'll be able to get it through the heads of some of the dopes in the departments below him.


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## neroden (Dec 24, 2016)

TiBike said:


> keelhauled said:
> 
> 
> > In any case, the three values of the revenue worth of the diner I came up with were $3.8 million, $2.4 million, and $1 million, all against an operating cost of $10 million. I don't see any scenario in which Amtrak didn't win.
> ...


As noted, they are not good numbers.


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## neroden (Dec 24, 2016)

dlagrua said:


> Getting away from the discussion above, I see a great challenge ahead for Mr. Moorman in getting proposed new routes opened.


Bluntly, the economics for opening new routes is bad.
The problem is exactly what I described before: economies of scale, fixed costs vs. variable costs. A new route has a lot of brand-new fixed costs. Yes, it leverages the Amtrak reservations system and backshops. If you're lucky, it leverages one or two major terminal stations at either end. And then a lot of new fixed costs. Amtrak can't responsibly take those on its books, which is probably why the policy has been to make cities pay for their own stations. They still need new crew reporting points, etc. etc.



> There are advocacy groups for a daily Cardinal


This, on the other hand, has good economics. It leverages economies of scale. The cost of operating the stations already exists; the overhead of contracting with CSX already exists; all the crew change points already exist; etc. etc.



> like all aboard Ohio that is also pushing for new train service on part of the old PRR mainline which would route through Lima, Columbus, Ft Wayne, Valparaiso, Gary and on to Chicago.


Good idea but lots of new fixed costs. As a result, All Aboard Ohio is pushing for *not less than six trains per day each way*, if I remember correctly, because you need to go big to leverage the fixed costs.



> Then there is the old Sunset Route from NOL to ORL that needs to be reopened.


They're doing their best to leverage fixed costs on that, but still, a lot of new fixed costs, even if most are borne by the cities. I don't think one crew can take it from NOL to ORL, am I right?


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## Ryan (Dec 24, 2016)

Not at all. Looked at a random 2003 timetable, and ORL-NOL is 1345 to 0920 the next day. Going by the "separate arrival and departure times shown" guess, crew changes were likely at JAX and PNS.


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## jis (Dec 24, 2016)

neroden said:


> They're doing their best to leverage fixed costs on that, but still, a lot of new fixed costs, even if most are borne by the cities. I don't think one crew can take it from NOL to ORL, am I right?


I would guess at least three T&E crew.


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## Bob Dylan (Dec 24, 2016)

Re Neroden's comment about the "dopes" under the CEO, the first candidates for "pink slips" should be the CFO that supposedly cut the Diner from the Silver Starvation behind Mr. Boardmans back, and the other bean counters that dreamed up the nickel and dime cuts to the Service in the Diners and Sleepers. YMMV


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## TiBike (Dec 24, 2016)

It's a good and plausible analysis of the available data, that points towards an answer. We don't have all the numbers – this is a chat board, not the Amtrak board room – but the numbers we do have support (i.e. fail to falsify) the hypothesis that, in some if not all instances, dining car service costs more than it contributes to the bottom line – directly and indirectly.

Amtrak does have all the numbers, and has people who can do a full analysis and get as close to a definitive answer as you can in managerial accounting. I assume 1. the above hypothesis is correct and 2. Mr. Moorman is a capable executive, as everyone seems to think, so I'm predicting that we'll see less dining car service in 2017, rather than more or the status quo.

Easy enough to prove me wrong.



neroden said:


> TiBike said:
> 
> 
> > keelhauled said:
> ...


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## Ryan (Dec 24, 2016)

With new diners rolling off the line, you're going to be wrong pretty quick. We'll see dining car service restored to both the Star and LSL before 2017 is over.


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## TiBike (Dec 24, 2016)

Ryan said:


> With new diners rolling off the line, you're going to be wrong pretty quick. We'll see dining car service restored to both the Star and LSL before 2017 is over.


Cool. Let's see where the facts take us this coming year.


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## WoodyinNYC (Dec 24, 2016)

neroden said:


> dlagrua said:
> 
> 
> > . . . a great challenge ahead for Mr. Moorman in getting proposed new routes opened.
> ...


The plan is for two more sets of equipment. Taking the CONO extension to Miami would require a third additional consist. That's why it won't be going to Miami. (Connections available.)

p 23

http://www.newsherald.com/assets/pdf/DA2111216.PDF


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## A Voice (Dec 27, 2016)

Little new here, except that Amtrak has spoken to President Elect Trump's team:

http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2016/12/27/amtrak-ceo-charles-moorman


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## neroden (Dec 27, 2016)

Thanks for that article. This one may seem like a low-content quote, but I think he's spotted some of the *penny-wise pound-foolish* stuff I've noticed in previous Amtrak behavior:

"They're very different in some ways, and they're very much the same in others. Clearly, hauling people is a lot different than hauling containers, or automobiles, or coal. And the customer requirements are clearly different as well. But, at the end of the day, the things that it takes to run a good freight railroad are, by and large, the things that it takes to run a good passenger railroad. And so, as I've stepped into this role and looked around, I've been able to bring a lot of my experience, and actually have brought a few folks in to look and see where we can improve the railroading side of Amtrak.""


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## Ziv (Dec 28, 2016)

TiBike, riding a train for more than 12 hours with just a cafe car is irritating. Having a real dining car serving fresh, hot meals adds a huge amount of pleasure to a trip that is really hard to quantify. I know that I would not have taken my last EB trip if they hadn't had a diner.

Obviously given the cost of labor, it is going to be hard for the diner to "pay for itself" but if you don't have a diner, those profitable sleeper cars are more likely to be half full.

I have seen large American corporations cut costs and ruin their customer satisfaction levels. Sometimes being penny wise and pound foolish is a great way to destroy your business.



TiBike said:


> It's a good and plausible analysis of the available data, that points towards an answer. We don't have all the numbers – this is a chat board, not the Amtrak board room – but the numbers we do have support (i.e. fail to falsify) the hypothesis that, in some if not all instances, dining car service costs more than it contributes to the bottom line – directly and indirectly.
> 
> Amtrak does have all the numbers, and has people who can do a full analysis and get as close to a definitive answer as you can in managerial accounting. I assume 1. the above hypothesis is correct and 2. Mr. Moorman is a capable executive, as everyone seems to think, so I'm predicting that we'll see less dining car service in 2017, rather than more or the status quo.
> 
> Easy enough to prove me wrong.


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## Palmetto (Dec 28, 2016)

Dining cars have never--and will never--pay for themselves. The private railroads knew that long before they relinquished their passenger train service Anyone who thinks that dining cars can break even is not in touch with reality, IMO. Mr. Mica comes immediately to mind.


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## TiBike (Dec 28, 2016)

That's my point – evaluate the impact of dining cars on overall revenue and costs, but do it train by train. If a dining car increases the overall profitability of a train by increasing sleeper travel, then great, keep it. But it's possible that too few passengers agree with you about dining car service to make that case. That would be the purpose of experiments and market research.



Ziv said:


> TiBike, riding a train for more than 12 hours with just a cafe car is irritating. Having a real dining car serving fresh, hot meals adds a huge amount of pleasure to a trip that is really hard to quantify. I know that I would not have taken my last EB trip if they hadn't had a diner.
> 
> Obviously given the cost of labor, it is going to be hard for the diner to "pay for itself" but if you don't have a diner, those profitable sleeper cars are more likely to be half full.
> 
> I have seen large American corporations cut costs and ruin their customer satisfaction levels. Sometimes being penny wise and pound foolish is a great way to destroy your business.


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## jis (Dec 28, 2016)

TiBike said:


> That's my point – evaluate the impact of dining cars on overall revenue and costs, but do it train by train. If a dining car increases the overall profitability of a train by increasing sleeper travel, then great, keep it. But it's possible that too few passengers agree with you about dining car service to make that case. That would be the purpose of experiments and market research.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I tend to agree with that in principle. The problem is designing an experiment that provides an apples to apples comparison. IMHO even the Star experiment does not,since the train consists are not the same or even close. and the routes are sufficiently different, and even before the change it was known that the travel profile on the Star was measurably different from that on the Meteor.


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## neroden (Dec 28, 2016)

Before talking of removing dining cars, there are a gazillion ways to improve dining car service so as to raise revenue. They really are not operated efficiently.

This business of closing way before the train arrives at the terminus is completely ridiculous, for instance, and is for the staff's convenience, not that of the passengers.  It may take serious changes in internal procedures to get rid of this nonsense -- I have heard it rumored that this nonense is related to the lack of Point of Sale inventory tracking -- but it's worth fixing stuff like this before talking about removing dining car service. (By the way, where IS the point of sale inventory tracking? This is an embarassing case of Amtrak trying and failing to implement something which should have been implemented about 10 years ago. Can they assign the clever people who implemented e-ticketing to the project? They seemed to have the right attitude in terms of system design.)

Some crews properly advertise to coach passengers. Others don't, or even refuse to serve coach passengers, which is unacceptable.

The complete lack of ingredients lists could be fixed easily and would attract more customers. Obviously, since a number of us are basically unable to eat most of the food in the dining car due to this stupid omission.

Stocking the dining cars properly costs very little and would raise revenue and customer satisfaction greatly.

I guess the point I'm making is that dining car service *run well* is quite likely to be financially beneficial, even if dining car service the way Amtrak *mismanages it* is financially detrimental. I don't think you can do a fair comparison without running the dining car service competently.


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## west point (Dec 28, 2016)

Actually observed the STAR over the Christmas holiday with 2 locos. That same Star Christmas eve had normal consist that only had enough passengers for one coach and one sleeper. On the other hand observed Meteor on Christmas eve with 6 Viewliners on end but was too far away to break down the consist as to type. Does that mean 4 sleepers ? Probably and why so many maybe the draw of a diner ?


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## Thirdrail7 (Dec 28, 2016)

neroden said:


> Before talking of removing dining cars, there are a gazillion ways to improve dining car service so as to raise revenue. They really are not operated efficiently.
> 
> This business of closing way before the train arrives at the terminus is completely ridiculous, for instance, and is for the staff's convenience, not that of the passengers. It may take serious changes in internal procedures to get rid of this nonsense -- I have heard it rumored that this nonense is related to the lack of Point of Sale inventory tracking -- but it's worth fixing stuff like this before talking about removing dining car service. (By the way, where IS the point of sale inventory tracking? This is an embarassing case of Amtrak trying and failing to implement something which should have been implemented about 10 years ago. Can they assign the clever people who implemented e-ticketing to the project? They seemed to have the right attitude in terms of system design.)
> 
> ...


While there is no doubt room for improvement, your analysis would indicate that every dining car service that operated in the past was also operated incompetently. Therefore, a fair comparison may not be possible since they are loss leaders.

Additionally, I think a comparison to past operations will not yield much since Amtrak makes no real effort to make the car worthwhile. The trains don't even car the ridership to support it. Look at the puny trains that are operated. A great deal of passengers on a given train aren't designated long haul passengers. Plus, there is a cafe car competing for funds.

Bring back the cafeteria car and call it a day.



west point said:


> Actually observed the STAR over the Christmas holiday with 2 locos. That same Star Christmas eve had normal consist that only had enough passengers for one coach and one sleeper. On the other hand observed Meteor on Christmas eve with 6 Viewliners on end but was too far away to break down the consist as to type. Does that mean 4 sleepers ? Probably and why so many maybe the draw of a diner ?


The Star vs Meteor consist comparison is not a good measurement since the Star is almost dead train for connections. In other words, it barely connects to trains while the Meteor connects to points east, west, north and even south. For long haul passengers, the ride is 4 hours faster from Mia to points north of RMT. As such, the Meteor is going to have more riders.


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## TiBike (Dec 29, 2016)

jis said:


> I tend to agree with that in principle. The problem is designing an experiment that provides an apples to apples comparison. IMHO even the Star experiment does not,since the train consists are not the same or even close. and the routes are sufficiently different, and even before the change it was known that the travel profile on the Star was measurably different from that on the Meteor.


Real world experiments are messy. But combined with targeted market research, it can produce useful insights – better than going on gut feeling alone. Any changes that are implemented as a result have to be monitored and evaluated with the same degree of diligence. The best you'll ever get is the "one eyed man in the land of the blind", and even that's a reach. The most important thing is to be willing to let objective data challenge what everyone "knows is true".


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## jis (Dec 29, 2016)

On the matter of how the cost and revenue of Dining Cars should be handled in general, I think it is wrong headed to separate it out from the overall train revenue and cost, as in treating the F&B as a separate P&L center. Just like the Sleeping Car Attendants are not treated as a separate P&L center, the F&B business should not be either. Indeed even a single train should not be treated as a separate P&L Center when there are multiple trains serving a corridor. But that is a separate more complex subject matter. Amtrak has, under political pressure been remiss in trying to slice and dice things too finely to the detriment of its overall ability to provide meaningful improvement to service, and the sooner they can get out of that mode the better.


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## TiBike (Dec 29, 2016)

I agree. That strikes me as accounting based on bureaucratic fiefs rather than on the service provided to customers - what does it cost to deliver the service, what does the customer value and what is he/she willing to pay for it?


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## west point (Dec 30, 2016)

One way to break down the diner costs may be to compare what the all Pullman trains of the past did. Such as Florida special, Broadway, 20th Century limited, UPs, Super Chief. Today the closest would be taking Auto train and breaking down the sleeper diner and coach diner when both are on that train.

Lets look at how costs and revenues may be applied to diners.

Question. On Amtrak's trains today is each sleeper passenger's diner portion of fare allocated to the diner or just the ones who eat there ? As well is a second , third, or fourth passenger in the same compartment have some of their coach fare allocated to the diner; again if they eat or do not ?

Then we can also say that the coach passengers who eat in the diner might have part of their coach fare allocated to a diner assuming they might not have traveled if no diner ? Wow that would take some market research on each route.

In conclusion these costs and allocations are really complicated. This poster has no idea.

IMO there are 3 types of travelers on Amtrak trains today. Those who do not really care for a diner or on a strict budget. Those who do care but dining fare is not an over riding factor. Those who want fine dining. Unfortunately with the present single or at most two short LD trains a day on parts of a route that is now impossible.

Then of course maybe only the actual revenue from each person who eats is allocated to revenue ?

These are all question IMO Moorman should be asking.


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## jis (Dec 30, 2016)

west point said:


> Question. On Amtrak's trains today is each sleeper passenger's diner portion of fare allocated to the diner or just the ones who eat there ? As well is a second , third, or fourth passenger in the same compartment have some of their coach fare allocated to the diner; again if they eat or do not ?
> 
> Then we can also say that the coach passengers who eat in the diner might have part of their coach fare allocated to a diner assuming they might not have traveled if no diner ? Wow that would take some market research on each route.
> 
> ...


Only the menu price of the actual food (included in the fare) consumed by Sleeper passengers is allocated to the Diner, from the fare collected from the Sleeper passengers. Nothing is allocated to the Diner from the fares collected from the Coach passengers. Whatever they actually pay to purchase food in the Diner goes to the Diner account. Additionally Sleeper passengers also purchase things like alcohol in the Diner which they pay for and is credited to the Diner account.

I think Mr. Moorman already knows the details of what is transferred to the Diner account from fares. It is not a deeply held secret or an unknown fact.


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## tricia (Dec 30, 2016)

west point said:


> IMO there are 3 types of travelers on Amtrak trains today. Those who do not really care for a diner or on a strict budget. Those who do care but dining fare is not an over riding factor. Those who want fine dining. Unfortunately with the present single or at most two short LD trains a day on parts of a route that is now impossible.


May I add another "type of traveler" here? Those on long distance trains, overnight or longer, who require a reasonable selection of reasonably fresh, nourishing, healthful, and tasty food. Neither the diner nor the cafe car menus currently accomplish that.

I'm not a terribly fussy eater, but after 24 hours eating out of Amtrak's diner on a cross-country trip earlier this year, I had round-the-clock indigestion. (I suspect high levels of psuedo-food additives, since nearly everything served in the diner is highly processed. Even the luncheon salad.) Availability of decent food--not necessarily "fine dining"--is a real requirement for the captive clientele on long-distance trains. I LOVE long train trips, but am reluctant to sign up for another unless/until Amtrak's food improves.


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## Palmetto (Dec 30, 2016)

How does one process a lunch salad? The thought intrigues me.


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## Ryan (Dec 30, 2016)

I process it like this:


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## Palmetto (Dec 30, 2016)

Funny, very funny! I asked for that, and I got it.  So let me ask it a different way:

What's the processed food in a lunch salad?


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## neroden (Dec 30, 2016)

tricia said:


> May I add another "type of traveler" here? Those on long distance trains, overnight or longer, who require a reasonable selection of reasonably fresh, nourishing, healthful, and tasty food. Neither the diner nor the cafe car menus currently accomplish that.


This is the most common type of traveller. I am a particular example who needs, most of all, a reasonable selection of items with *ingredients lists* so that I can choose something I'm not allergic to while still getting a balanced (according to the USDA recommendations) meal.
This shouldn't be difficult, and seems like a really low standard to me, frankly, but is currently impossible on Amtrak.


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## neroden (Dec 30, 2016)

tricia said:


> (I suspect high levels of psuedo-food additives, since nearly everything served in the diner is highly processed. Even the luncheon salad.)


Actually, the only four reliable "100% food" items on the entire dining car menu are:-- eggs in the morning

-- omelete == eggs + vegetables (which are 100% vegetables) in the morning

-- lunch salad, no dressing (Dressings at least do have ingredients lists, but are full of additives)

-- steak, no sauce

These are the four menu items I could verify to contain only the listed ingrediants, and as a result have been the only things I can eat in the Amtrak dining car for years.

Of these, the omelette is by far the nicest. The better crews do their best with the salad and steak, but it's really not much fun.


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## Larry H. (Dec 30, 2016)

neroden said:


> crescent-zephyr said:
> 
> 
> > TiBike said:
> ...


I for one have pretty much stopped riding Amtrak due to the lousy food services and reduced amenities while higher and higher cost are the norm in first class. Who ever wrote that the dinner experience is a way to encourage repeat customers was right. Too many bad ones and you no longer want to ride.


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## Larry H. (Dec 30, 2016)

I hope he looks at the need for more "Hubs" that allow for reasonable connections for way more locations. That to my mind is the only way things can really grow. Its very irritating having to pay to travel a day out of your way and then back again in distance to get where you want to go. You shouldn't have to travel across half the nation to go somewhere your in need of traveling too. That to me is one reason the so called Long Distance trains may not be carrying enough passengers along with the amount of people turned down by limited sleeping cars. When you see weeks or a month without a way to get a sleeper then its pretty obvious your running away business. That should stop.


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## neroden (Dec 30, 2016)

Thirdrail7 said:


> While there is no doubt room for improvement, your analysis would indicate that every dining car service that operated in the past was also operated incompetently.


Nonsense. Most dining car services prior to the 1950s were operated in entirely reasonable manners. I actually have talked to people who remember them, y'know?



> Additionally, I think a comparison to past operations will not yield much since Amtrak makes no real effort to make the car worthwhile.


This is rather my point.



> The trains don't even car the ridership to support it. Look at the puny trains that are operated.


Explain to me why I've repeatedly been on an LSL where the dining car was turning customers away due to overcrowding. A few years back on the Empire Builder it was even more extreme; they ran a very tight ship and were very efficient and they were still having trouble turning tables fast enough to feed everyone. I've seen packed dining cars on the CZ repeatedly as well. And I've heard stories of the CS diner being sufficiently packed on one trip that they were really pushing sleeper passngers to eat in the PPC to free up space.
Sure, *some* trains don't carry the ridership to support it. Based on my experience the Texas Eagle certainly doesn't. Based on stats, the CONO and Cardinal don't at the moment. The Crescent doesn't south of Atlanta.

But it's just wrong to claim that the longer trains don't carry the ridership to support it.


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## neroden (Dec 30, 2016)

jis said:


> On the matter of how the cost and revenue of Dining Cars should be handled in general, I think it is wrong headed to separate it out from the overall train revenue and cost, as in treating the F&B as a separate P&L center. Just like the Sleeping Car Attendants are not treated as a separate P&L center, the F&B business should not be either. Indeed even a single train should not be treated as a separate P&L Center when there are multiple trains serving a corridor. But that is a separate more complex subject matter. Amtrak has, under political pressure been remiss in trying to slice and dice things too finely to the detriment of its overall ability to provide meaningful improvement to service, and the sooner they can get out of that mode the better.


I have to agree entirely. I do think it's worth breaking out "avoidable costs" or "incremental costs" at various levels, but of course Amtrak doesn't actually do that! So the result is accounting nonsense.

I have to think of the cautionary tale of the Milwaukee Road, whose accounting was such a mess that it claimed that the Pacific Extension was losing money and the grain branches were making money, *when in fact the reverse was true*. Management actually believed the bogus accounting and wrecked the company quite spectuacularly as a result.

It's not good that Amtrak's accounting is bogus. There is the danger that management will take it seriously.


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## tricia (Dec 31, 2016)

Palmetto said:


> Funny, very funny! I asked for that, and I got it.  So let me ask it a different way:
> 
> What's the processed food in a lunch salad?


At the time I went cross-country, the salad was marinated vegetables on a bed of lettuce. Don't know what the marinade was, but it was pretty intense and sort of "cooked" the veggies, rather like ceviche. And the optional chicken breast also tasted like it was soaked in something, rather like sliced deli meats.


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## west point (Dec 31, 2016)

jis said:


> west point said:
> 
> 
> > Question. ?
> ...


If the diner is only getting the price of the meal allocated from the sleeper then something is terribly wrong. Example. The meteor serves 4 meals NYP - MIA. A 3 day check check of roomette prices of it and Star were different by $260,183,203. There is no way even two persons per roomette could eat that much food Either the STAR fares are too low or Meteor too high. If sleeper passenger fare differences were allocated even half to diner the F & B becomes a significant difference.

This doesn't seem to pass a smell test. No wonder all of our posters say Amtrak accounting sucks ?


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## A Voice (Dec 31, 2016)

west point said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > west point said:
> ...


The presence (or lack) of onboard amenities (dining car) is not the only factor driving a difference in price between the _Silver Star_ and _Silver Meteor_. Differences in demand alone could account for much of the price differential; The two trains serve rather different markets on different routes, and rooms on one will often be priced in a different fare bucket than the other, even for the same day of travel, and booked at the same point. A quick check of March 21, 2017 from Washington to Orlando shows bedrooms just $23 apart for the two trains (one dinner for one person!), but next September 21st, the _Meteor_ bedroom is $418 more expensive than the _Silver Star_ (no kidding!).


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## jis (Dec 31, 2016)

west point said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > west point said:
> ...


You are merely suffering from trying to reconcile reality with your own delusional assumptions. Who said that the fare difference has anything to do with the cost of food? The difference is basically whatever the market will bear.


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## Thirdrail7 (Jan 4, 2017)

Mr. Moorman has introduced a consolidated reporting structure. Let's see how it turns out.


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## Skyline (Jan 5, 2017)

Maglev said:


> As someone who has worked in customer service for forty years, I can tell you that it is impossible to give good service if you do not have a good product delivered on time. Without costly infrastructure additions, the best way to improve the product is with better on-time performance, and this would be accomplished by negotiating with the freight railroads for better dispatching. Perhaps it is realistic for us to look to Mr. Moorman to try to achieve this.


While we/Amtrak are waiting for infrastructure or maintenance improvements to happen, at least for non-corridor intercity trains including the LD favorites, making schedule adjustments would be better than the current late-train debacle.

Most LD train passengers aren't that worried that it takes X number of hours to reach a destination, compared to Y for autos or Z for flight. They made a decision to take the train for reasons other than speed. But they do want to arrive, consistently, on the advertised or close to it.

Amtrak should, therefore, change its arrival times sufficiently at key points along LD routes to allow for the predictable delays now experienced regularly. On the rare days a train arrives ahead of the (new) schedule, that train will have to wait to proceed but the rest of the time trains could be pretty much on-time. The freight railroads will need to sign off on changes of this magnitude, and during those negotiations perhaps Amtrak can try to establish better performance through a combo of sticks and carrots. They should at least try on the routes that need them most.

The only real problems I see with this are work-hours, connection times, and fewer equipment turnaround hours at terminals/commissaries. But with the current late-train syndrome we already have these issues. Wouldn't it be better to revamp schedules to better reflect realities, and have fewer late arrivals/missed connections/inadequate turnarounds? The biggest unanswered issue is: Does Amtrak's current equipment roster allow for this?


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## A Voice (Jan 5, 2017)

Skyline said:


> Maglev said:
> 
> 
> > As someone who has worked in customer service for forty years, I can tell you that it is impossible to give good service if you do not have a good product delivered on time. Without costly infrastructure additions, the best way to improve the product is with better on-time performance, and this would be accomplished by negotiating with the freight railroads for better dispatching. Perhaps it is realistic for us to look to Mr. Moorman to try to achieve this.
> ...


Past experience has shown that stretching out schedules to remedy persistently late trains doesn't really work in the long term. It just creates more opportunities for a less disciplined operation. You likely see a (generally short lived) immediate benefit from the lengthened timetable only for the train to gradually grow tardy once again.

Longer schedules are sometimes necessary, but such an approach does nothing to solve the real source(s) of the delays. .


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## ainamkartma (Jan 5, 2017)

A Voice said:


> Skyline said:
> 
> 
> > Maglev said:
> ...


Please please correct me if I am wrong, but it is my understanding that the current agreement with the freight railroads awards them a bonus if the time of arrival at the end point of a given train, averaged over some time period, is within some grace period of the scheduled time. The grace period is proportional to the length of the journey of the train. So for the EB, for example, the freight roads (BNSF in this case) get their bonus if the train arrives at its end point within approximately two hours of the scheduled time. And surprise, the average lateness of the EB each month is just a hair less than two hours. This bonus structure could help explain why stretching the schedule will not cure and has not cured chronic lateness: the freight roads will do what it takes to get their bonus (if that) and not one whit more.

So a possible (if pipe-dreamy) path forward would be for Moorman to renegotiate this bonus structure with the freight carriers, and replace it with something that parallels the pain to Amtrak and its customers due to very late trains: a full bonus only for actually on time (defined as arriving at or before the scheduled time) trains, and a penalty for late trains that increases exponentially with the amount of time the train is late.

There was a recent thread on this subject explaining the bonus structure much more clearly than I have done here, but I could not find it in a few minutes of hunting.

Take care,

Ainam "OK Google... I forget what I was going to ask" kartma


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## niemi24s (Jan 5, 2017)

neroden said:


> tricia said:
> 
> 
> > May I add another "type of traveler" here? Those on long distance trains, overnight or longer, who require a reasonable selection of reasonably fresh, nourishing, healthful, and tasty food. Neither the diner nor the cafe car menus currently accomplish that.
> ...


_Most_ common? What is there that leads you to make such a broad and all-encompassing statement?


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## Bob Dylan (Jan 5, 2017)

I agree that schedule juggling and padding are schemes that might work short-term, but leads to disasters like the Old Sunset Ltd. East ( 24.Hour Late Trains into Florida)

First Class Service and Amenities are what matter to most Sleeping Car Passengers that pay Hundreds, if Not Thousands of Dollars, for their tickets.

Even Healthier and Better Choices in the Cafe Cars would benefit ALL Train Passengers and Amtrak's bottom line as well!

This is a fix that Mr Moorman can implement Now! Mica and Boardman are in Retirement and the foolish promises about Food and Drink Profitability and the Nickel and Dime "Cuts" should be Deep Sixed!


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## PVD (Jan 5, 2017)

I certainly wouldn't argue against improved food service offerings, but the most common type of traveler is on the NEC or a state supported corridor.It isn't even close.


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## tricia (Jan 5, 2017)

PVD said:


> I certainly wouldn't argue against improved food service offerings, but the most common type of traveler is on the NEC or a state supported corridor.It isn't even close.


I think Neroden meant "most common" type of Amtrak long-distance traveler. That's certainly what I meant, in the post he was responding to.

And I don't think anyone would dispute that food requirements for passengers on short-haul trains are very different from what's needed on long-distance trains, where your clientele really HAS to eat something, over the course of a longer trip. If you're on a train for 24 hours or more, something approximating "real food" is needed, not just frozen pizza, hot dogs, sodas....


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## ainamkartma (Jan 5, 2017)

niemi24s said:


> neroden said:
> 
> 
> > tricia said:
> ...


Neroden's statement seems pretty non-controversial to me. I'm sure there are some people who don't require decent food during long periods of time (those fasting for religious or moral purposes, maybe?), but it seems obvious that those travellers are quite rare. The fact that it is common for people to _choose_ to poison themselves with junk food instead of eating "reasonably fresh, nourishing, healthful, and tasty food" is irrelevant to the fact that they still _need_ decent food.

Ainam "Let them eat cake!" Kartma


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## Ryan (Jan 5, 2017)

niemi24s said:


> neroden said:
> 
> 
> > tricia said:
> ...


Technically his statement falls 49.99% short of being "all-encompassing".


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## DSS&A (Jan 5, 2017)

Amtrak announced its new reorganization effective immediately that reduces senior management in half and reorganizes the company into six direct reports.

http://m.railwayage.com/index.php/passenger/intercity/amtrak-shakes-up-the-building-and-moves-it.html?channel=41


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## Bob Dylan (Jan 5, 2017)

Wonder how many of his people he'll bring in to shake up the status quo?

If this is a true streamlining move and not just rearranging the deck chairs it could be very good for Amtrak and for us!


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## west point (Jan 5, 2017)

A Voice said:


> .
> 
> How true just look at the Sunset's schedule lengthening. Now when it runs on time schedule time make up has long waits at stations. Experienced 40 minutes once in Houston.


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## Seaboard92 (Jan 6, 2017)

I've arrived in Indianapolis an hour and a half early prior to scheduled departure(not arrival time) and the conductor said that was normal but usually they came in earlier. I used the time to walk around downtown Indy at night.


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## neroden (Jan 6, 2017)

niemi24s said:


> neroden said:
> 
> 
> > tricia said:
> ...


Unlike *some* people, I'm not crazy.

How many travelers do NOT require a reasonable selection of reasonably fresh, nourishing, healthful, and tasty food?

Seriously, even some travellers who think they don't require that *do in fact require that* and their doctors will tell them so!


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## keelhauled (Jan 6, 2017)

It doesn't matter what people need, what pays the bills is what people buy.


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## niemi24s (Jan 6, 2017)

neroden said:


> niemi24s said:
> 
> 
> > neroden said:
> ...


I wonder what gave me the silly notion that personal attacks were not permitted on this forum. My mistake. Must have been some other forum.


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## Ryan (Jan 6, 2017)

What makes makes you think that he's talking about you?

Either way, the correct course of action remains to contact the staff if you feel someone is in the wrong, not try to play passive aggressive armchair moderator in every thread that you get your feelings hurt in. The results are far more effective than crapping up the thread with your complaints.


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## Thirdrail7 (Jan 7, 2017)

neroden said:


> Thirdrail7 said:
> 
> 
> > While there is no doubt room for improvement, your analysis would indicate that every dining car service that operated in the past was also operated incompetently.
> ...


No, I didn't know....but I do now. Did they make a profit, cover their costs or were they loss leaders?



neroden said:


> > The trains don't even car the ridership to support it. Look at the puny trains that are operated.
> 
> 
> Explain to me why I've repeatedly been on an LSL where the dining car was turning customers away due to overcrowding. A few years back on the Empire Builder it was even more extreme; they ran a very tight ship and were very efficient and they were still having trouble turning tables fast enough to feed everyone. I've seen packed dining cars on the CZ repeatedly as well. And I've heard stories of the CS diner being sufficiently packed on one trip that they were really pushing sleeper passngers to eat in the PPC to free up space.
> ...


Look at the stations the Lake Shore serves and the time of day it passes through them. 49 is ideal for capturing the dinner crowd traveling between the busy NYP-BUF corridor since it leaves NYP in the late afternoon while 48 is good for capturing the lunch crowd heading to NYP from. Therefore, you have a significant group of "local" passengers in addition to the "long haul" passengers that will be in the position to utilize the dining car. The train typically has 3 sleepers and 6 coaches. Even when they cut it down, it will still have 3 sleepers and 4 coaches on a populated route with a large amount of intrastate travel and connecting long distance passengers, all competing for the dining car. 97 is another example. It has decent times to Virginia and 3 sleepers.

Meanwhile, you have the other trains that are not on a densely populated route, operating with less equipment with only one coach designated for long distance travel. The trains may have ridership but is it ridership that will use a dining car?


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## neroden (Jan 7, 2017)

Thirdrail7 said:


> neroden said:
> 
> 
> > Thirdrail7 said:
> ...


Now, that's a complicated question, because, believe it or not, Amtrak is not the first railroad to have suspicious accounting!
I can tell you that the first dining cars were most certainly profitable -- they were run as an independent service by Mr Pullman and *had* to make a profit on their own, while paying the host railroads for haulage!

This depended absolutely on having a really large number of people on the train to which the car was attached, make no mistake about that.


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## afigg (Jan 7, 2017)

DSS&A said:


> Amtrak announced its new reorganization effective immediately that reduces senior management in half and reorganizes the company into six direct reports.
> 
> http://m.railwayage.com/index.php/passenger/intercity/amtrak-shakes-up-the-building-and-moves-it.html?channel=41


Just for the record, the January 4 Amtrak news release that the Railway Age article expands on: Amtrak Announces Streamlined Corporate Structure. New CEO, another management reorganization reshuffle.


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## Thirdrail7 (Jan 7, 2017)

neroden said:


> I can tell you that the first dining cars were most certainly profitable -- they were run as an independent service by Mr Pullman and *had* to make a profit on their own, while paying the host railroads for haulage!
> 
> *This depended absolutely on having a really large number of people on the train to which the car was attached, make no mistake about that.*



That is exactly the point I'm trying to make about puny consists. Here is a post I made when the plan to cut the dining car off the Starvation was finally announced officially:



> Re: Silver Star Downgrade ?
> 
> Postby ThirdRail7 » Wed Jul 08, 2015 10:02 pm
> 
> ...



Since I've made this post, the available numbers on the train have dropped. When the Pigeon is running around with one sleeper and two coaches, that doesn't say opportunity. When the Starvation drops sheds another coach, you'll have even less people in it for (pardon the pun) the long haul. The same goes for the Capitol Punishment, even though that carries a large amount of through/connecting passengers. The cafe may be enough for some people while others will just carry their own stuff. It becomes easier when you only allocate some many long distance passengers per train.

You also need good food at a reasonable price. It is my opinion that the prices are prohibitive especially for what you are receiving. You're less likely to splurge.

However, you ultimately need numbers on your side and with these puny consist tethered with a regional travel base that hogs through traffic, the dining car model may have run its length on quite a few trains.


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## Palmetto (Jan 7, 2017)

DSS&A said:


> Amtrak announced its new reorganization effective immediately that reduces senior management in half and reorganizes the company into six direct reports.
> 
> http://m.railwayage.com/index.php/passenger/intercity/amtrak-shakes-up-the-building-and-moves-it.html?channel=41


You'll notice, though, that no one was named for Chicago. Maybe nobody wants to take over the morass that exists there.


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## neroden (Jan 7, 2017)

I seem to agree with you on everything, ThirdRail. 

You may have noted my promotion of longer trains.

The Star/Meteor situation... well, honestly, if it weren't for the Tampa issue, it would make a hell of a lot of sense to have one train with a dining car targeted at longer-distance customers and have the second train with no dining car as the "local". This was a very common arrangement in the pre-WWII period.

The situation with Tampa, served only by the Star, is the problem. I really wish the Tampa-Orlando high speed rail hadn't been cancelled, as it would have resolved this all rather neatly.


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## west point (Jan 7, 2017)

neroden said:


> You may have noted my promotion of longer trains.


Precisely this poster's view. If Amtrak could double the number of passengers on any train and staffed the diner accordingly how much would that reduce the food and Beverage losses for that train by double patronage ?.

Operating mileage costs believe have been published of about $.20 per mile for a car on any train. Average fares non NEC are about $.23 per mile and NEC about ~$.50 mile. Sleeper revenues are all over the page but any where from #.35 - 1.10 per mile. So 20 additional LD coach passenger to 8 passengers for Regionals to 4 - 10 passengers for sleepers meets the mileage charges.

Then we have the costs of OBS ( 1 for every 2 - 3 coaches and future 2 for every 3 sleepers ) and if train long enough another Assistant conductor.

Longer train may require another loco(s) which will be ordered with additional cars :

There should (?) be no additional charge by RR for longer trains. Timekeeping may become more critical if the train(s) have to make more 2,3 or 4 stops at a station. But we believe that Moorman will get station dwell time reduced for each stop whether single or multiple ?


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## haolerider (Jan 8, 2017)

Anyone have any insight on the individual's named in the corporate reorganization - other than the "deck chairs on the Titanic" comments?


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## neroden (Jan 9, 2017)

Based strictly on rumor and innuendo, I'm happy about DJ Stadtler, and unhappy about Gerald Sokol, so I'm happy that Procurement is being moved from Sokol to Stadtler. I can't really say much about any of the other people involved.


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## jis (Jan 9, 2017)

Anyone know anything about the new Operations guy? As I recall he was brought on board by Moorman from NS. Or am I remembering wrong?


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## Palmetto (Jan 10, 2017)

Chicago VP has not been named. That might be saying something about the morass that exists there.


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## Thirdrail7 (May 19, 2017)

With the current Chief Transportation officer retiring in a few months, it seems Mr. Moorman has inserted a former NS manager with 13 years in the industry to the position of Vice President Safety, Compliance and Training (the former Chief Transportation Officer.)


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## cirdan (May 19, 2017)

TiBike said:


> There's a point where government subsidies should stop. If you take Interstate highways as an example, that point might be "above the rails" for Amtrak. Subsidise the track, bridges and other basic infrastructure, then run the railroad on the basis of value given for value received. If there are special reasons to subsidise service – service to isolated rural communities, traffic reduction in urban areas – then, fine, go for it. But there's a point where you stop providing extras if people don't value those extras sufficiently to pay the cost. Or alternatively, you raise prices and/or cut costs to the point where cost and revenue are in balance. Or find another company that doesn't have Amtrak's cost structure and let them make a go of it. Dining car meals are a good example of that.


I don't think its that easy just to bring in a catering company, show them the dining car, and tell them, get on with it.

At times SCAs and other train staff will double as servers in the dining car or cafeteria car. If you farm that out to a separate company, how would that work?

A dining car is not a diner that just happens to be on a train, any more than airline catering is not a catering service that just happens to be on a plane. The staff need special training and also perform other tasks.

I think that Amtrak either needs to run all catering, or drop it. Maybe on a one off basis you can have something like a PV dining car that just happens to be included in an Amtrak consist, and that just happens to allow passengers to walk in and eat, but this is for exceptional situations. I don't think you can make that work across the board. And if you can, it won't be cheaper than what you have today.


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## west point (May 19, 2017)

Any private dinning car service runs up against of passengers expecting them to help in an emergency. We cannot think of any way to separate passenger expectations of help from any OBS no matter either Amtrak or private.


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## zephyr17 (May 19, 2017)

Just FYI, Alaska Railroad outsources their dining car, IIRC.


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