Train Travel Then and Now: A Pricing Comparison

[ehbowen]

This is a little essay that I worked up earlier this year to answer some of the questions I received most frequently at the Galveston Railroad Museum:

Train Travel Then and Now: A Comparison of Historic and Modern Pricing

Enjoy.

 

[jis]

Very interesting! Thanks.

 

[ehbowen]

Another trip I have the information to add: New York to New Orleans in November 1949

Served by several different trains including the Southerner and Crescent. The Crescent, all-Pullman between New York and Atlanta, departed New York Penn Station at 1:50 p.m. and arrived New Orleans the next day at 8:25 p.m. The all-coach Southerner left New York at 4:35 p.m. and arrived New Orleans the next evening at 9:10 p.m. Coach fare was $34.82 one way and in a sleeper you would pay $48.25 rail fare plus $12.00 for a lower berth or $16.80 for a Roomette.

Comparison air fare on Eastern Airlines (several trips daily, including a new Lockheed Constellation which left Newark at 8:00 a.m., made one stop in Washington DC at 9:20 a.m., then flew direct to New Orleans arriving 12:31 p.m.): $76.35. That looks to be a [Edit: one class] fare. Federal tax was 15%.

I'll let you do the inflation calculations on your own....

 

[ehbowen]

One more that I found: Denver to San Francisco in October, 1962. (My limitation is basically that the railroads did not publish fare information in the Guide until the mid-60s, while many of the airlines did publish fares in the '40s and '50s but had stopped advertising that information by the early '60s.)

On Union Pacific/Southern Pacific you would have taken the City of St. Louis, which departed Denver at 8:05 a.m. and arrived in Ogden at 7:00 p.m., then transferred to the westbound City of San Francisco departing Ogden at 7:35 p.m. and arriving in Oakland at 10:50 a.m. the next day with a bus transfer taking you into downtown San Francisco by 11:20. The ride would have set you back a total of $41.48 plus $1.50 for the reserved coach seat charge in coach or $52.68 plus a Pullman fare of $17.70 for a lower berth or $24.75 for a Roomette in first class. (BTW, the fares were exactly the same to Los Angeles...but it's difficult to get a comparison Amtrak fare for that route since the cancellation of the Desert Wind.)

Your air travel alternative was on Western Airlines, which had a new Boeing 707 departing at 9:00 a.m. local time (Mountain Standard) and arriving San Francisco at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight time, or 2 hours total flight time. (To Los Angeles, there was a Lockheed Electra departing Denver at 8:50 a.m. and arriving L.A. at 12:57 p.m. after intermediate stops in Phoenix and San Diego). "One Way De Luxe Fares" for the Denver-San Francisco flight were $73.65, while the L.A. flight was $68.85. It appears that the Federal Tax on airfares and rail fares had been rescinded by this time.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Very interesting, thanks for posting!

I'm old enough to remember the days of the crack trains and the mail and milk trains.

I was lucky to be able to ride the Super Chief,the Sunset Ltd. and the Texas Eagle in Sleepers as well as many trips in Coach on various trains! Since the Diner was expensive, I mostly took food or ate in the coffee shop or bought from the "candy butchers" that

worked the trains! A quarter was a lot of money in the '40s and '50s!!!

Flying was exotic and expensive but was an adventure, even on the old DC-3s and Lockheed prop jobs that droned along the airways with many stops! (for example Braniff flew from Denver to Colorado Springs to Amarillo to Ft. Worth to Dallas to Austin to Houston, same flight!!!)

 

[Anderson]

Thank you for this. I did a bit of research on this front (it is buried somewhere on this site) checking fares on the Silvers back in the late 60s/early 70s (pre-A Day) and comparing with now. What you've generally found is about what I did: High bucket coach is roughly in line with what the prices were "before", though that is so rarely paid. Sleeper fares are also roughly on target now with what they were in the 60s (high bucket being a bit higher and low bucket being a bit lower, of course). I do need to go back and check notes with the New York-Washington fares from when the Metroliner started to compare with the Acela, however.

 

[railiner]

The early Amtrak National Timetable listed many fares....

http://www.timetables.org/full.php?group=19710712&item=0030

One thing about rail fares that I recall from that era both before and after Amtrak, was that there was a regional difference...

For example, New York coach to Chicago was $51.25, but New York coach to Atlanta, almost as far, was only $36.42.....

 

[Paulus]

The early Amtrak National Timetable listed many fares....

The October 31, 1982 timetable appears to be the last Amtrak timetable with sample fares in it.

 

[SubwayNut]

In 2003 when Amtrak went back to having a national timetable (instead of separate eastern and the rest of the country timetables) sample fares were added. These lasted until sometime until between 2010 and today.

 

[Anderson]

Ok, I went with the last iteration since getting proper inflation data for this year is nigh-on impossible. 2013 can, however, be found and so I have used last August's numbers per that thread I keep updating once or twice per year:

Jul 1971, WAS-NYP
Coach: $13.00
Parlor Car: $23.40 plus $3.15
Metroliner Coach: $17.00
Metroclub: $27.40 (plus $3.15?)

Jul 1971, WAS-NYP (adjusted for inflation via CPI)
Coach: $74.80
Parlor Car: $135.00 plus $18.10
Metroliner Coach: $97.80
Metroclub: $158.00 plus $18.10

Jul 1971, WAS-NYP (adjusted for inflation via per capita GDP)
Coach: $123.00
Parlor Car: $221.00 plus $29.70
Metroliner Coach: $161.00
Metroclub: $259.00 plus $29.70

Aug 2013, WAS-NYP

WAS-NYP (Regional)
Bucket E: $49
Bucket 1: $84
Bucket 2: $120
Bucket 3: $145
Bucket 4: $164
Business Class: $41 additional

WAS-NYP (Acela)
Bucket 1: $152
Bucket 2: $180
Bucket 3: $205
Bucket 4: $231
Bucket 5: $259
First Class: $116 additional

I put both sets of numbers up for information, but the bottom line to be had is that the difference (at least on NEC-South) between the regular trains and the Metroliners was a lot less than the difference now between the Regionals and the Acela while the apparent price difference for coach vs BC/Acela BC vs Acela FC is a lot bigger. I broke the "plus" out for the accommodation charge because I wasn't sure if those accommodation charges were rolled into the higher fares for the regular trains (I don't think so) or the Metroliners (I have no idea).

Going with per capita GDP as the measure, the 1971 fares are middle-bucket for Regional coach, high bucket and then some for Regional BC, low bucket for Acela BC and high bucket for Acela FC.

 

[railiner]

I believe I can clear up one of your questions....

In the early years, Amtrak continued many of the legacy railroad practices. So The 'Metroclub' fare was equivalent to a 'First Class' fare, and the 'plus' fee was what they called a 'seat charge'.....they also charged first class to ride in a Pullman sleeper, and added the 'berth charge' or room charge, as appropriate.

Also its interesting that both Metrocoach and Metroclub had the same $4.00 upcharge over a conventional coach or parlor car fare, in that example.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Any updates for Streamliner Schedules soon?

 

[ehbowen]

Any updates for Streamliner Schedules soon?

I'd like to, and I have plenty of material, but I'm working a much more intense full-time job than when I started. Not as much free time, or down time. But, I have a job...that's something to be thankful for these days.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

That's good. If you have some photocopies of the timetables, could you post them on the forum?

It's nice to see that train fares back then were more comparable to airline fares. Now a Sleeper is definitely going to run you more than a flight in Economy. I found old Braniff fares from here: http://www.braniffpages.com/.

You might find them useful though I failed to find the exact link to the fares pages. I know it's in there somewhere along with a bunch of timetables.

BTW, I like your 16" AP sig!

 

[ehbowen]

You might visit Timetable World sometime; they have an entire August 1952 Official Guide of the Railways available on-line.

 

[Anderson]

I'm just looking over the B&O's entry...their bus stop at the New Yorker...no, that's not at all a slap at the Pennsy for throwing them out of the tunnels back in the 20s. Not at all!

 

[railiner]

The B&O had bus stops all over the city....even in Brooklyn. And it is no wonder they would want a bus stop near Penn Station (as well as GCT), as it would provide convenient connections for their passengers to or from the LIRR.....

It has always been a good idea for a smaller carrier to try to locate close to a larger rival business location in many different businesses....