High sleeper fares on the Crescent: why?

[TheCrescent]

Sleeping car fares on the Crescent are back to being really high, and there is limited availability: why, with Viewliner II sleepers to add capacity?

A few days before Easter, my approximately 600 mile commute is over $600 one way, and only one room is left, according to the Amtrak app.

Why wouldn’t Amtrak be adding a third sleeper to the Crescent, at least at peak times? If there’s only one room left almost a month before departure, how many tickets is Amtrak missing out on selling by not adding capacity?

 

[Rasputin]

Why wouldn’t Amtrak be adding a third sleeper to the Crescent, at least at peak times? If there’s only one room left almost a month before departure, how many tickets is Amtrak missing out on selling by not adding capacity?

After years of watching Amtrak, I have reached the sad conclusion that they don't care.

 

[Cal]

I can only think of two possible reasons:
-Not enough staff to add another sleeper
-Backlog of maintenance meaning they don't have an extra sleeper to add

 

[dadonatrain]

As one who has no sensible chance at all to go anywhere on Amtrak except to board the Crescent in Clemson or Greenville, going one direction or the other regardless of final destination, I heartily agree sleeper fares are ridiculous on this route! I’ve lived here for 12 years now and I don’t ever recall them being anywhere near cost effective! And Clemson’s a college town too! So at least some of the time I’m not the only one boarding there! There’s at least a little college business once in a while. And with both departures either direction at 0-dark-o’clock, a sleeper is the only sensible way to try to travel in a little comfort!

 

[west point]

To add a sleeper to the Crescent Amtrak will need 4 additional sleepers to run the whole route. I do not believe that Amtrak does not have 4 spare cars at this time. thee are unconfirmed reports that Amtrak's number of out of service cars is very high.
Now if Amtrak could drop 2 sleepers that are not needed south of ATL then just 2 more would be needed. But lack of locos needed to do that IMO are probably not available either.

 

[joelkfla]

To add a sleeper to the Crescent Amtrak will need 4 additional sleepers to run the whole route. I do not believe that Amtrak does not have 4 spare cars at this time. thee are unconfirmed reports that Amtrak's number of out of service cars is very high.
Now if Amtrak could drop 2 sleepers that are not needed south of ATL then just 2 more would be needed. But lack of locos needed to do that IMO are probably not available either.

Couldn't they add them asymmetrically, say to 2 out of the 4 consists?

 

[GAT]

Now if Amtrak could drop 2 sleepers that are not needed south of ATL then just 2 more would be needed. But lack of locos needed to do that IMO are probably not available either.

I would disagree that they would not be needed south of Atlanta. If I'm traveling NYP - NOL and want to book a book a sleeper, I don't want to have to move to a coach for the last twelve hours of my journey.

 

[west point]

All my trips south of ATL never was there a need for more than 2 sleepers. In fact never more than 1 south of ATL except a couple times 2 needed as far as ATL - BHM. Just keep 1 sleeper for trips thru ATL south of ATL.
History--- When SOU was running 3 times a week WAS<>ATL <> NOL. For a while It had one train a week that ran WAS<>ATL<>BHM. And of course the other 3 days ran WAS<>ATL.

 

[GaSteve]

To add a sleeper to the Crescent Amtrak will need 4 additional sleepers to run the whole route. I do not believe that Amtrak does not have 4 spare cars at this time. thee are unconfirmed reports that Amtrak's number of out of service cars is very high.
Now if Amtrak could drop 2 sleepers that are not needed south of ATL then just 2 more would be needed. But lack of locos needed to do that IMO are probably not available either.

That would make the station stop at ATL even longer and, with the times of #20, make a bad situation worse.

 

[Rasputin]

That would make the station stop at ATL even longer and, with the times of #20, make a bad situation worse.

This was hardly an insurmountable task when I observed it a number of times in the early 1970s. When the southbound Crescent arrived in Altanta, the locomotives would be cut off and moved for servicing. The dome car would be added on those days that the Crescent continued to New Orleans. I don't have a timetable from that period handy but my recollection was that it was not an overly long stop (certainly nothing like the planned Texas Eagle stop at St. Louis).

But of course that was the Southern Railway in the early 1970s and this is Amtrak in 2022 so it is an insurmountable task.

 

[jis]

This was hardly an insurmountable task when I observed it a number of times in the early 1970s. When the southbound Crescent arrived in Altanta, the locomotives would be cut off and moved for servicing. The dome car would be added on those days that the Crescent continued to New Orleans. I don't have a timetable from that period handy but my recollection was that it was not an overly long stop (certainly nothing like the planned Texas Eagle stop at St. Louis).

But of course that was the Southern Railway in the early 1970s and this is Amtrak in 2022 so it is an insurmountable task.

Open up a map and take a look at the available tracks and let us know how this would be achieved today, given that Amtrak does not have a locomotive maintenance facility in Atlanta and some of the tracks and even more importantly, crossovers, that existed then are not there anymore.

 

[Rasputin]

Open up a map and take a look at the available tracks and let us know how this would be achieved today, given that Amtrak does not have a locomotive maintenance facility in Atlanta and some of the tracks and even more importantly, crossovers, that existed then are not there anymore.

You are correct. Under Amtrak it is an insurmountable task (just like baggage couldn't be handled in Atlanta for a time because the elevator was out of service). Long distance trains are accorded no priority in Amtrak's planning so there is no solution.

 

[jis]

You are correct. Under Amtrak it is an insurmountable task (just like baggage couldn't be handled in Atlanta for a time because the elevator was out of service). Long distance trains are accorded no priority in Amtrak's planning so there is no solution.

Amtrak has all sorts of faults, and I have no problem criticizing them when criticism is due, but the situation in Atlanta is not entirely of their own making. That's all I am saying.

And what does elevator have to do with whether the necessary trackage needed to add/drop cars efficiently exists or not, something that NS controls, not Amtrak?

 

[Rasputin]

And what does elevator have to do with whether the necessary trackage needed to add/drop cars efficiently exists or not, something that NS controls, not Amtrak?

It is just another example how under Amtrak, there are no solutions except cancellation of service.

 

[JP1822]

Amtrak has never been good at 1) Keeping a waiting list for sleeping car passengers once sleeper space is sold out (it's been done in the past but sporadically at best) 2) matching sleeping car demand with sleeping car supply. Although they have 75 Viewliner sleepers in the East - between Viewliner I and Viewliner II's, not all are being kept in "active" service. And it's more complicated than not having a Sleeping Car Attendant. Put another way, IF Amtrak wanted to add a sleeper to the Crescent during heavy travel periods, they could. But the fact of the matter is - they won't. In Boardman, Gunn, and Warrington years - occasionally consists would expand in peak periods (e.g. three Viewliner Sleepers on the Crescent for Thanksgiving or around Easter). But those days are gone. VIA Rail will easily look to add sleepers as their demand increases - and this is why pre-COVID consists swelled to nearly 25 cars on the Canadian. Amtrak's not operating in the same business model, but they are also not operating in the same supply/demand reservation model either....... I am not even sure if some management realize why they don't like the long distance trains, other than the fact that they've been told to not help or like them.......... SAD!

 

[TheVig]

We have a trip on the Crescent, at the end of April. When I booked our roomette CLT-NYP, almost a month ago, we got it for $430. However lately when I check the same travel date, the price, from one day to the next varies from $580 to $680.

 

[jruff001]

And asking them would require Amtrak to have the idea to do NYP-ATL sleepers only, which I also doubt they have thought of.

What?? 19 used to cut out several cars in ATL and turn them back north the same evening on 20 (I remember this in the 1990s, not sure when it stopped), so I am sure "they" have definitely "thought of" that.

Now back to our regularly scheduled monotonous Amtrak management hate / bashing . . .

 

[Cal]

What?? 19 used to cut out several cars in ATL and turn them back north the same evening on 20 (I remember this in the 1990s, not sure when it stopped), so I am sure "they" have definitely "thought of" that.

I didn't know that, but I was talking more about present-day.

 

[jis]

I didn't know that, but I was talking more about present-day.

There used to be a few more sidings and crossovers to facilitate that which NS kindly removed at some point. I remember a lot of well justified belly aching among those in the know in the advocacy community when that happened, and the consequences were predicted correctly.

 

[west point]

How to have cut off cars in Atlanta.
1. First Amtrak needs to lease some kind of locomotive power. Either a loco, switcher, or a track mobile all with HEP.
2. Start with #19. Have switcher preposition north of station on siding.
3. Inbound 19 will have all cutoff cars on rear of train with both sleepers and coaches with the baggage car at front.
4. After 19 arrives, passengers off, cutoff cars disconnected from front of train. Front pulls forward few feet disconnecting cutoff cars.
5. switcher connects to cars and parks them in steel siding with ground HEP.
6. #20 Sleeper passengers can board at 2100 until 45 minutes before scheduled arrival of 20 or 45 minutes before late train.
7. Switcher pulls north on siding to wye at a restored Armour wye.
8. Switcher pulls cars south of station onto a stub siding south of the station.
9. Switcher connects cars to 20 after 20 arrives.
10. As 20 leaves ATL switcher follows and enters siding to wait for next #19

Sleepers will follow coaches so no rear coach passengers walking thru sleepers. If 20 times become earlier, then sleeper boardings might have to be changed.

 

[BlackDiamond]

How to have cut off cars in Atlanta.
1. First Amtrak needs to lease some kind of locomotive power. Either a loco, switcher, or a track mobile all with HEP.
2. Start with #19. Have switcher preposition north of station on siding.
3. Inbound 19 will have all cutoff cars on rear of train with both sleepers and coaches with the baggage car at front.
4. After 19 arrives, passengers off, cutoff cars disconnected from front of train. Front pulls forward few feet disconnecting cutoff cars.
5. switcher connects to cars and parks them in steel siding with ground HEP.
6. #20 Sleeper passengers can board at 2100 until 45 minutes before scheduled arrival of 20 or 45 minutes before late train.
7. Switcher pulls north on siding to wye at a restored Armour wye.
8. Switcher pulls cars south of station onto a stub siding south of the station.
9. Switcher connects cars to 20 after 20 arrives.
10. As 20 leaves ATL switcher follows and enters siding to wait for next #19

Sleepers will follow coaches so no rear coach passengers walking thru sleepers. If 20 times become earlier, then sleeper boardings might have to be changed.

Looking at the layout of ATL from Google satellite view, it looks like there are just 2 main tracks and an island platform plus a third track with no platform that diverges off to the Southeast, I don't see where you could build this siding to hold sleepers. Something that would hopefully be considered if and when they build a proper station befitting a metro area with 6 million population.

 

[jimdex]

There is a siding on the south side of the tracks at the Atlanta station that is used whenever weather conditions or trackwork force Amtrak to truncate the Crescent between Atlanta and New Orleans. Until the end of the Slumbercoach era, Amtrak used a Norfolk Southern switcher to add or subtract an Atlanta-New York Slumbercoach to the Crescent consist, and I know of no track changes since then that would prevent a similar operation today. Amtrak may possibly have some good reasons not to add a sleeper at Atlanta, but as far as I know, infrastructure is not one of them.

 

[west point]

Jimdex: You are correct. ATL sleepers parked there would only need a walkway from the station steps to a platform built next to where the sleepers would be parked. As well a ground HEP connection will be needed.
Have never seen anything parked there except one time some MOW equipment for 1 day.

 

[jimdex]

The Crescent parks there all day when it doesn't go on to New Orleans; for instance, when there's a hurricane warning or doing those multiple days each winter when Norfolk Southern is doing track work south of Atlanta.

 

[pennyk]

MODERATOR NOTE: Off topic posts relating to possible private operation of LD trains were moved to a new topic:

https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/private-operation-of-long-distance-trains.81539/