Viewliner II - Part 1 - Initial Production and Delivery

[Paulus]

Here's a cleaned up and happier looking spreadsheet for the single levels with some additional numbers on it. Feel free to tweak with it as need be, it's using your approximation on employee sleeper use (except for the Cardinal at 0.75) and this consist info, though with FY12 ridership and revenue. I've erred on the side of caution by including the seasonal Meteor coach year round.

At a guess: Coach has twice the seat turnover of sleepers (reasonable) but manages to put a butt in each seat at some point during the day, while sleepers only manage half of that. Two major possible reasons, assuming number of available sleeper seats properly calculated: 1) The turnover point for a room is ill suited for reselling that room for quite some time (generally speaking) and 2) Many rooms are sold at less than full occupancy (such as a single person in a roomette).

 

[neroden]

Thanks very much, Paulus.

I think you're right that the turnover point for a room is generally ill suited for reselling it (Tampa is a particularly good example for this.) Single occupancy roomettes are also common (we know that), but pay Amtrak the same amount as double occupancy roomettes.

I tweaked "sleepers per consist" based on my most recent estimates of staffing levels (which were based on the Blue Book rules). I counted this by taking 12 roomettes + 3 bedrooms - # of staff, divided by 15. This gives the following number of sleepers per consist:

Star 1.46

Cardinal 0.73

Meteor 2.46

LSL 2.33

Crescent 1.46

When I do so, I get the result that the sleepers gain more revenue than coaches on the Lake Shore Limited (by $56K), but not on the other trains. Note that this is *highly* sensitive to the denominator; with a denominator of 2.34 on the LSL, you get the result that the sleepers are only $50K better than the coaches. Hence my use of two decimal places in the denominator.

So, very interesting. I was misgeneralizing from my experience.

The Cardinal is also pretty close to even (coaches are $43K better). I expect that daily service would allow for higher prices in both sleepers and coach, but I think it would tilt the balance towards the sleepers. The sleepers on the Cardinal sell out pretty regularly but are *also* cheap compared to the LSL or CL -- they are probably hitting a price wall, and it's probably partly due to less-than-daily service. Three-a-week needs to end.

The Star/Meteor/Crescent are doing much better in coach than I would have expected. Part of this is the large number of short-haul passengers, presumably. (Which aren't present on the the LSL, and the three-a-week schedule and unreliability of the Cardinal probably means there are relatively few there either.)

The Silver Star has particularly strong coach results. These are probably related to its Miami-Tampa function. The sleepers are probably half-or-more empty from Miami to Tampa. If it didn't require a maintenance facility, and if it didn't run up against PRIIA rules, it would really make more sense to terminate the Star in Tampa and run a separate Tampa-Miami train -- and I think this is what is showing up in the numbers there.

It is also notable that the Palmetto has exceptionally high revenue per coach seat.

I'll have to rerun the analysis with 2013 and 2014 numbers just for comparison, to see how sensitive it is to different years.

Anyway, this analysis shows about $1.2-$1.3 million in revenue per Viewliner sleeper; more on the LSL, less on the Cardinal as long as it's 3-a-week. I know of no way to estimate maintenance or added fuel costs (tell me if you do), so I've been spitballing $300K/year. The sleeper attendant, I'm estimating at $100K/year (including benefits and whatnot). The calculations are pretty insensitive to these numbers though; if an additional sleeper can be filled at the same prices, the payback period remains *very short*. The fairly common sellouts indicate to me that an additional sleeper can be filled at pretty much the same prices.

If an added coach could be filled on the Star, Meteor, or Crescent at the same prices, it would likely be more valuable. I'm not sure whether it can, though. I'm sure the added sleepers can be filled.

The other conclusion this leads me to is that Amtrak should beef up NY-Chicago service. (A conclusion I was inclined to believe already.) The first assignments of the new sleeping cars should be the LSL, the Pennsy-Cap through cars, and a daily Cardinal. And a night train on the NEC -- NOT carrying a dining car overnight -- to test the current demand there. Perhaps the one Anderson suggested, overnight from NYC-Richmond, continuing to Hampton Roads. Or perhaps the Boston-Washington night train, #66/67. Actually, both should be tried.

I would say that Florida service may not need extra sleeping cars quite as much... but the sleeping cars to Florida are selling out too. Very frequently. Sleeping car prices on those routes can probably be jacked up a bit more (and probably will be), at which point the sleepers will be making more than the coaches. Unless, of course, the coaches are selling out too, and the coach prices can be jacked up to match... which may be the case.

Some more long-distance configuration coaches would certainly be useful too. I'm not denying that. The sleepers are a more urgent new-build priority, because (as soon as the Midwest/California bilevels arrive) Horizons or Amfleets can be reconfigured as long-distance coaches; an injection of 78 Horizon coaches, reconfigured for long-distance service, would alleviate long-distance coach problems for a while. It's about the right number to re-equip the Star, Meteor, Crescent, and Palmetto, which would get the Horizons out of the cold weather.

----

As already noted, the dining cars in current operation really do seem very expensive. They need a lot of patronage in order to cover the fixed costs of running a dining car at all.

In 1982 the trains affected with loss of dining cars lost 13.6% of ridership. I will make a very generous estimate of 13.6% of all revenue. Since the lost ridership is probably preferentially longer-distance, and longer-distance trips have had discounted fares for some unknown reason, this number is probably too high. The highest-revenue Viewliner train in 2012 is the Silver Meteor at $39773225, and it's done worse in 2013 and 2014. 13.6% of this is $5,409,158.60. If I instead assume the government-suggested 10% revenue allocation, I only get $3,977,323.50.

But the dining car has a staff of five. At $100,000 each (including benefits), plus $70,000 in foregone revenue per staff-occupied roomette (this is a lowball estimate), and 4 trainsets, adding $100K in maintenance per year per car (another low-end guess), that's $3,800,000 in operations costs per year. Without including the cost of the actual food, though it also doesn't include the income from the food. This number is probably too low. If I instead assume $80K in foregone revenue per roomette and $300K in maintenance per year per car, I get $4.8 million. (Note that if you had double-occupancy staff roomettes you could cut $160K/year off of this.)

A similar calculation for the LSL gives costs of $2.95 to 3.9 million; 13.6% of revenue is $4.46 million, 10% is $3.28 million. The cost of carrying around those five employees is very high.

In order for the dining cars to be reliably positive for Amtrak's bottom line, they have to handle more passengers per day. This means longer trains; more seatings per meal; more tables per seating. A Superliner dining car seats 72, where a Viewliner dining car only seats 48. Once the trains are long enough, adding half a car as a table car seems wise to me. Maybe Amfleet I BC/cafe cars could be pressed into service, if there are enough of them.

Woody's right again -- the cure for what ails Amtrak is more Amtrak. Only a long, full train can really support a dining car.

----

The Superliner trains eventually sell out too, but at relatively lower prices, considering distance. I checked just now for December 17th (a random Wednesday). I can get a roomette from Chicago to LA for $756, one from Chicago to Emeryville for $791, from Chicago to NY (a much shorter distance) for $557, from Chicago to DC for $369 (the Capitol Limited is *weak*), New York-New Orleans is $756, and I can't get a roomette from New York to Miami at all, because they're sold out (there's one Bedroom available).

 

[afigg]

Anyway, this analysis shows about $1.2-$1.3 million in revenue per Viewliner sleeper; more on the LSL, less on the Cardinal as long as it's 3-a-week. I know of no way to estimate maintenance or added fuel costs (tell me if you do), so I've been spitballing $300K/year. The sleeper attendant, I'm estimating at $100K/year (including benefits and whatnot).

....

You are seriously underestimating the cost of providing the sleeper attendant unless you want the poor LSA to work non-stop 365 days a year. Where he/she would rack up major overtime. I don't know the details of their trip rotation, but to fill that LSA position over the course of a year for 365 trips must take 3 to 4 LSAs on the employee roster. So $300K or more for the LSA position for the Viewliner sleeper car is a more viable estimate.
That is why implementing the plan mentioned in the OIG report to have LSAs split a sleeper car is so important to the bottom line. Dig up the 2011 PRIIA PIP report on the Crescent with the proposed modification to have 1 LSA support the 2 sleeper cars with 8 roomettes occupied by the OBS. The projected staff cost savings, spread over all consists, so it is not just 1 sleeper car per trip, was $0.9 million. The Crescent takes 30 hours NYP to NOL, so the staffing cost is effectively ~3 sleeper cars at any one time or ~$300K per revenue car.

In the current Crescent configuration with 2 LSAs and 8 roomettes occupied by 8 OBS, there are 16 roomettes and 6 bedrooms for revenue sale. The net projected gain in the 2011 PIP, was $0.2 million from the additional roomette sale revenue plus $0.9 million in cost savings for a total of $1.1 million. Pretty significant improvement.

If the Crescent is expanded to 3 Viewliner sleepers but no bag-dorm car, with the assumption that the 50 existing sleepers will be updated to the 11 roomette + shared bathrooms configuration, that will provide a total of 33 roomettes plus 9 bedrooms. But 8 of those roomettes are used for OBS.

If Amtrak adds a 3rd Viewliner sleeper to the Crescent and keeps the LSA staffing at 2, with them spliting the center sleeper car, freeing up the center LSA roomette for an OBS person, the net revenue capacity will be 33 roomettes - 8 OBS + 1 LSA roomette = 26 roomettes plus 9 bedrooms. The LSA staffing cost will remain the same for the Crescent, so the net gain is 10 roomettes plus 3 bedrooms for revenue sale. I figure that in practice that the spare LSA roomette will be occupied by one of the OBS to keep the passengers in the standard roomettes.

For the LSL, adding bag-dorm and a sleeper car to the NYP section is going to add a lot of capacity. If 8 roomettes are occupied by the NYP OBS, then the NYP section will go from 16 available roomettes + 6 bedrooms to, if 2 LSAs cover the 3 NYP sleeper cars, to 34 roomettes + 9 bedrooms.

 

[Paulus]

I've added the Superliner trains (except Auto Train) along with the Surfliner and Cascades to the same document. I went with a different assumption this time around and did not add in the dorm car or any seasonal sleepers (though seasonal and short distance coaches were retained for full year and distance). I also didn't try figuring out how to handle the Texas Eagle's through cars. Sleepers generally significantly outperform coach and Viewliner in this case. Seat turnover in coach is markedly reduced however due to the giant expanses of nothing at all whatsoever that the routes traverse.

As an aside, doing this pointed out just how bad the Sunset Limited is: It only has two revenue cars (plus another two for the Eagle), not counting the dorm car.

Anyway, this analysis shows about $1.2-$1.3 million in revenue per Viewliner sleeper; more on the LSL, less on the Cardinal as long as it's 3-a-week. I know of no way to estimate maintenance or added fuel costs (tell me if you do), so I've been spitballing $300K/year. The sleeper attendant, I'm estimating at $100K/year (including benefits and whatnot). The calculations are pretty insensitive to these numbers though; if an additional sleeper can be filled at the same prices, the payback period remains *very short*. The fairly common sellouts indicate to me that an additional sleeper can be filled at pretty much the same prices.

If an added coach could be filled on the Star, Meteor, or Crescent at the same prices, it would likely be more valuable. I'm not sure whether it can, though. I'm sure the added sleepers can be filled.

Prices and Costs in the Railway Sector quotes an average maintenance cost of 0.4 euros per vehicle-kilometer. Converted and inflated, it's 77 cents per vehicle-mile. Viewliner trains run about 4.27 million train-miles with 17 consists (or about 250,000 miles per consist) which would be about $193K per car. If we want to keep using the same source for diesel while doing foul and unspeakable things to statistics, a Viewliner weighs about 59 metric tons and consumes about 31,350 gallons of diesel (this matches with another calculation that's not so abusive, so right order of magnitude) or about $100K in fuel costs per year. So pretty decent spitball.

Alternative maintenance calculation: Viewliner programs cost ~$7.5 million per year which would be ~$147K per car.

As for adding at the same prices, I'd be really doubtful of that. We didn't see that with the Cardinal when it added a second sleeper and I think adding that many more rooms is likely going to result in a major drop to per passenger revenue.

 

[neroden]

You are seriously underestimating the cost of providing the sleeper attendant unless you want the poor LSA to work non-stop 365 days a year. Where he/she would rack up major overtime. I don't know the details of their trip rotation, but to fill that LSA position over the course of a year for 365 trips must take 3 to 4 LSAs on the employee roster. So $300K or more for the LSA position for the Viewliner sleeper car is a more viable estimate.

OK, I dug up some information. Comment #1 is informative:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2012/10/amtrak-food-service

Sooo, the attendants are paid by the hour, $28/hour. This means that *faster trains cost less*.

On the LSL the trip is supposed to be 19 hours west, 20 east. (Call it 21 because of delays.) So: take 21 hours/departure * 365 departures/direction/year * 2 directions == 15330 hours/year. Divide by 3 consists. Multiply by $28/hour. So the attendants for one car (on the LSL) should cost $143080 in wages.

Note that slicing one hour off the runtime is worth ~$6800 per car per year. In wages alone. Delays and slow schedules *hurt* a *lot*.

Here's an attempt to estimate benefits. The same comment suggests 160 hours of work per month for an OBS employee, or 1920 hours/year. The LSL runs for about 15330 hours/year, so each consist runs for about 5110 hours/year. So each car requires about 2.66 employees.

Amtrak claimed in the September 2014 report that "premium based" benefits plus "FELA benefits" averaged about $20,146 per agreement employee, and that "payroll based" benefits cost about 19% of payroll. So $143080 * 1.19 + 2.66 * $20,146 ~= $223853. (I ignored "other benefits" because they're erratic, and actually negative some months.)

So, you can estimate the cost of all the sleeper attendants for one car on the LSL at $225K.

This may be an overestimate. I don't know if the attendants are actually paid to sleep (we can ask FormerOBS...) If they aren't, then this is a substantial overestimate.

You're right that having one attendant handle more rooms is worth a lot, of course. (It's not worth nearly as much as running the trains faster would be -- I estimate one hour less of runtime on the LSL to be worth $219K/year in OBS wages & benefits at current staffing levels. Since it would also increase revenues, it's obviously worth more.)

But the Viewliner sleeping cars *still* have a remarkably quick payback period. With $225K in wages & benefits, and $300K in maintenance & fuel, that's $525K. Except on the Cardinal, each car is generating $1.2 million/year in revenue conservatively. That's $675K/year in profit; with cars costing $2.3 million (the average from the Viewliner II order), that's a four year payback.

Just for Paulus: suppose that ticket yields drop by *25%*, so that each car is generating only $900K/year in revenue. Suppose that sleepers are far more expensive than the average car in the order at $2.6 million/car (probably a gross overestimate), that's still a ten-year payback. I think this is overly pessimistic.

(Of course, the expenses should come out different on the Florida trains as well. I haven't run the numbers there.)

----

These wage numbers have more of an impact on the dining cars, with their 5 staff members. Figure $300K in fuel and maintenance, $1.12 million in wages & benefits, $350K in foregone revenue from roomettes. Then each dining car somehow has to raise at least $1.77 million in revenue (whether at the table, or from more tickets purchased, or from higher ticket prices) just to break even. This number may be low because of extra maintenance costs on a dining car for the cooking equipment, extra costs for the plates & glasses, higher wages for the LSA, etc.

To get a 10-year payback, the dining car needs to be raising another $230K-$260K/year on top of that, so call it $2 million in revenue per car.

It needs to be attracting a *lot* of passengers to raise that much. Even if we take the assumption of 13.6% of revenue from the LSL -- which really seems much too optimistic even to me -- that's only $4.46 million for 3 consists, or $1.49 million in attributable revenue per dining car.

This barely covers fuel+maintenance+wages+benefits (which is $1.42 million), doesn't cover the lost revenue from staff in roomettes, and never pays for itself.

Cutting staff would help some, but the dining cars are still very expensive to operate. If the dining car could be run with only three employees, I make it out to be $1.18 million in costs and foregone revenue. With a more pessimistic assumption of 10% of revenue -- which is still likely to be too optimistic -- there's only $1.09 in attributable revenue per dining car, so it's still not profitable.

Trying to bend things as favorably as I can to the dining cars, suppose that maintenance + fuel is only $250K, and that three employees are only $650K, and we manage to figure out how to get them out of the roomettes (perhaps by detaching the dining cars at night) -- that's still $850K/car in costs. The payback period is still 10 years or more.

With current operational practices, the dining cars seem to be giving very poor return on investment.

There needs to be a way to run the dining car which generates more revenue per worker. Maybe it still needs 5 workers, but if so, those 5 workers need to be handling far more customers per day.

It seems that to support a dining car at current wage levels, a train needs to be really, really long, as well as commanding a high premium for the dining service. 6 coaches and 2.4 sleepers (the current LSL) isn't enough. 6 bilevel sleepers and 5 bilevel coaches (the Auto Train) might be enough.

Anecdote time! On my most recent trip, I sat with one woman in the dining car (going from NY to Schenectady in coach) who had just taken the LSL for the first time, having usually taken the Empire Service. She had been startled to discover the dining car; ordered three bottles of wine; and said she was now planning to preferentially take the LSL in the future even when the tickets were more expensive, just to get the food. There's the sort of passenger who the dining car really makes money on!

As for adding at the same prices, I'd be really doubtful of that. We didn't see that with the Cardinal when it added a second sleeper and I think adding that many more rooms is likely going to result in a major drop to per passenger revenue.

We'll see about that. I think you're wrong.

The Cardinal's extra sleeper has been on for less than a year, and it missed most of the peak months.

The Cardinal is also a particularly extreme case of expansion. My numbers show that salable sleeper capacity was multiplied by 2.36 -- this isn't going to happen on the other trains, where you're getting more like a 1.5 multiplier.

Also, more importantly, there was no advance notice, so people looking six months in advance saw "sold out", which is bound to suppress ridership. Let's look again when it's been running for a year. It'll take some time for people to realize that the sleepers are even *available*, if they're used to them being sold out.

Even with all of this, the yield drop on the Cardinal was 25% in the *first month* -- and within a couple of months it promptly started selling out on the weekends again, so the prices have probably gone up again. I should take a look at the more recent months' numbers, which I haven't.

Prices might drop a bit in the short term -- they probably will, particularly if the added capacity isn't bookable at the usual 11 months in advance. But if prices promptly resume their inexorable climb up, and are back where they were before in about a year, then in my opinion they were pretty much added at the same prices.

Obviously there's some point at which there will be too many sleepers for profitable demand, and so adding more would require substantial, lasting, and detrimental price drops. I simply don't think most of the Viewliner trains are close to that. Maybe the Cardinal is while it's three-a-week, which suppresses demand, but it wouldn't be if it went daily.

However, some of the Superliner trains arguably passed that point long ago, given the typical sleeper ticket prices which are *much* lower per mile. Like, half as much. The Superliner ticket prices look even lower on a per hour basis, since the Superliner trains mostly run slower than the Viewliner trains. (And wages are paid per hour. Because of labor costs, slow trains are very expensive to run.)

...I'm actually going to amend what Woody said. The cures for what ails Amtrak are (a) more Amtrak, and (b) faster Amtrak. Because of the dominance of hourly wages in Amtrak's cost structure, slow trains are much more expensive to operate than fast trains -- and of course they get less revenue, too.

 

[Ziv]

Neroden, I like your quote about "more Amtrak and faster Amtrak". And "faster" doesn't necessarily require 125 mpg sections, it could be done by reducing the slow sections of the trips. I think that a lot of run time could be reduced by more and more double/triple tracking, but the problem is the usual suspects, no money and freight rail intransigence.

Getting the average speed on from mid-50's to mid-60's on the scheduled times would be a huge benefit, but I have my doubts about it happening in the near term.

 

[afigg]

Neroden, I like your quote about "more Amtrak and faster Amtrak". And "faster" doesn't necessarily require 125 mpg sections, it could be done by reducing the slow sections of the trips. I think that a lot of run time could be reduced by more and more double/triple tracking, but the problem is the usual suspects, no money and freight rail intransigence.

Getting the average speed on from mid-50's to mid-60's on the scheduled times would be a huge benefit, but I have my doubts about it happening in the near term.

The way to improve average speeds for the LD trains is through expanded corridor services. That is where the money is for track and capacity improvements aimed at passenger rail. The Crescent is going to benefit from the double tracking and upgrades in NC from Greensboro to Charlotte and the VA state funded upgrades from Alexandria to Lynchburg. The Silvers will benefit from improvements in VA and NC. The Texas Eagle from the CHI-STL corridor. And so on.
The upgrades won't be along the entire route of the LD train, but better trip times over 100 to 400 mile segments at either end of the route or a segment in the middle along with shared station costs will help a lot.

 

[Bob]

After 13 years of service, yes OBS staff are at 100% pay and make $28/hour. Many make a good deal less than that. They are not paid to sleep. 4 hours each direction (with some exceptions where it's 6 hours each direction for EB, CZ, and SL) OBS employees are not paid regardless of whether they have stops to man, beds to make, or anything else to do which most people would be expected to be compensated for doing while at their place of employment. That is their "rest time" regardless of whether they are allowed to rest and are not paid.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Thanks for the update on OBS Compensation!

Question: during the layovers in San Antonio and Spokane on #1 and #2 and #7/#27/#8/#28 where the SCAs are on duty outside their cars are they being paid for this time since they are not "resting"? (I know that the #421/#422 SCAs and Coach Attendants change out in SAS with #21/#22 OBS but the #1 and #2 ones do the whole route from NOL- LAX)

 

[Ryan]

So for a 47 hour Empire Builder trip, they're paid for 41 hours? Sounds reasonable.

 

[neroden]

All right. So using substantially-too-high estimates for wages (I need to slice off about 20% for the 4-hour rest time) and slightly-too-high estimates for maintenance, I *still* get a four-year payback period on the Viewliner sleeping cars. At current staffing levels. I ran it again using more accurate estimates, but I think I've proven my point.

If the sleeping cars can be filled at current or near-current ticket prices, they are a highly profitable investment. Period. The payback is as quick as Acela II, and possibly faster. Even if average ticket prices drop substantially the sleepers are still an excellent investment.

The dining cars are another matter. If I reduce the wage estimate to account for 8-hour rest time (out of 21 hours), there are still roughly $693K in staffing costs for 5 staff members. Add in the $275K in fuel & maintenance (an optimistic estimate), and the $350K in foregone sleeper revenue (again optimistic), and each dining car needs to generate about $1.318 million in revenue to break even. Again, 13.6% of revenue (probably too high an estimate) only attributes $1.49 million in revenue to each dining car on the LSL (and it's worse on the other trains). With a low $2.3 million estimate for the cost of the dining car, the resulting profit gives a 14-year payback. And those are *optimistic* assumptions.

Buying the new Viewliner sleeping cars is highly profitable for Amtrak. Buying the new dining cars is at best minimally profitable. I still believe they could be made much more profitable, but they have to be serving a lot more people per staff member, one way or another. I think the best way is probably a table car, provided it can be handled by the same number of staff members. (An Amfleet I, half table service, half corridor business class would do nicely.) "Point of sale" ordering / inventory tracking would probably help too. If the trains ran on time consistently, a bunch of other ideas could be pursued, but that still seems a long way away.

----

Anyway, all of this makes me frustrated that the sleeping cars have been pushed back in the queue.

I understand that Amtrak wants to dispose of the Heritage cars sooner rather than later, and that they don't want to create an interruption in dining car or baggage car service. But the baggage and dining cars will have fairly minor economic value to Amtrak (unless the Heritage maintanance costs are *far* higher than I think). With extremely pessimistic assumptions (25% drop in revenue), using the updated wage, benefits, maintenance, and fuel estimates, each sleeping car will generate $467K in profit per year; with more realistic assumptions of constant ticket yields, $767K.

Every year of delay on the 25-car sleeping car order is costing Amtrak somewhere between $10 and $20 million dollars (more if ticket prices go up). We have now run the numbers on this in enough detail that I'm pretty sure this is accurate. Amtrak could certainly use that money. If the excess maintenance costs of the Heritage cars are more than that... well, I'd be quite impressed. Maybe there is some technical problem which is delaying the sleeping cars (I hope that's the reason).

----

The way to improve average speeds for the LD trains is through expanded corridor services. That is where the money is for track and capacity improvements aimed at passenger rail. The Crescent is going to benefit from the double tracking and upgrades in NC from Greensboro to Charlotte and the VA state funded upgrades from Alexandria to Lynchburg. The Silvers will benefit from improvements in VA and NC. The Texas Eagle from the CHI-STL corridor. And so on.

This is why I'd like to see one of the Chicago-East Coast trains run via Dearborn; the Dearborn-Chicago line is already being improved.

Short of this, if Michigan scheduled a single corridor train from Toledo through Dearborn to Chicago, departing Toledo in the morning after the westbound LSL, and arriving Toledo in the evening before the eastbound LSL, that would help a lot. Ideally these could be run as through cars.

This would work better if the eastbound LSL was on the earlier schedule as proposed in the PIP (departing Chicago at 6PM, departing Toledo at midnight, arriving Syracuse at 9 AM, arriving NY at 3PM). That puts the LSL in the slot currently occupied by Empire Service #284 from Niagara Falls, so an Empire Service train from Niagara Falls should then move to the LSL's old slot (departing Niagara Falls around 9 AM, arriving New York around 6 PM).

Then the eastbound Chicago-Dearborn-Toledo train is about an hour earlier than Wolverine #354 (and could be done as a rescheduled version of that train). It ends up taking the slot out of Chicago of the Pere Marquette (they could be fleeted, of course, or the Pere Marquette could be shifted later.) The westbound Toledo-Dearborn-Chicago train then ends up taking the slot of Wolverine #351 from Pontiac (but should run local with all stops). Unfortunately the commuter function of the Pontiac train means they probably both have to run, but the Pontiac train could turn around and head back to Pontiac if CN would allow another slot.

With some care, the southbound Silver Meteor departure from NY and WAS could then be moved later; this would allow LSL-Acela-Meteor connections at least, and possibly direct LSL-Meteor connections.

...ok, I ran off on a bit of a free-association tangent there. Scheduling is a juggling act.

 

[hastybob]

OK - finally something is happening. Special running today Albany to Elmira to pick up a bunch of cars. I understand it is to return sometime on Wednesday.

 

[jis]

Rumor has it that it may be as many as 20 cars - though I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[afigg]

Rumor has it that it may be as many as 20 cars - though I'll believe it when I see it.

I saw that claim on trainorders. I can see a move of a few cars, but 20 in one batch? I don't buy that. There have been 2 baggage cars out for testing - with few if any confirmed sightings except at or around Philly. The first sleeper, diner, bag-dorm car were sent back to Elmira months ago with no news since then on their status. They are going to go from 2 baggage test cars to 20 cars in one delivery? Put me in the I'll believe it when I see the video and (non-manipulated) photos group.
A delivery of a few baggage cars is a big deal, given the several years of delay from the original initial delivery date and lack of news on the Viewliner IIs the past several months.

 

[west point]

The heritage baggage cars are really long on the tooth. Any major failure of any car is going to reduce a train set of a baggage car as spares are almost non existence. Just look at Eagle' and CNOL's no bag car.j Note -- the Amtrak monthly report for FY 14 showed non having any overhauls. The Heritage diners are another story. Several diners had level 1 & 2 overhauls in FY 2014. They may be some kept in reserve for unexpected needs.

The sleeper situation is interesting. The point that the 7 - 11 month reservations seem to require sleepers to be placed on the schedule way in advance.

The new V-2s once broken in may be able to become cut off sleepers. Certain trains have ability to fill those berths. The Meteor could have a sleeper MIA - WASH and Crescent could have a ATL - WASH & a V-1 ATL - NYP + its NOL - NYP V-1. The Crescent would actually increase sleepers of a net of only 2. !! The WASH sleepers for both Meteor and Crescent could rotate between each train getting them to MIA maintenance within 4 days.

The PRIIA for Crescent stated that the Diner, 1 - 2 Coaches, 1 Loco, & 1 sleeper could come off at ATL except for the Mardi Gras time which is slow time for other trains. Note SOU RR actually ran only 3 days a week and did this and even ran extra sections ATL - WASH during high season and holidays. The savings of car miles and additional revenue would certainly be welcome for Crescent stats.

How to handle the awful station situation in ATL? It would require at least 2 Main track switches and a new siding. The Loco(s) on train could work the front and maybe a track mobile might be enough to work the rear of the train?

 

[neroden]

I actually might believe 20. The baggage cars have gone through their second round of testing (remember, one came out, was returned, then two came out), which was the number of originally planned rounds of testing. The baggage cars have apparently been tested on the Florida routes (there were some sightings as well as rumors from inside Amtrak), and of course they've been tested on the NEC and the Keystone and the Empire Corridor up to Albany. I don't know if they've been tested on the routes to Chicago, which would seem important for winter. But 20 is few enough that they could be deployed entirely on the routes where they've been tested (Star, Meteor, Palmetto, Carolinian, #66/67) + the Crescent.

The production line is clearly far ahead of the delivery rate, so getting a whole bunch of cars out is a process of going back to the backlog of mostly-finished but not-certified cars and making whatever tweaks or minor changes Amtrak requested after testing. And it looks like there weren't that many tweaks requested for the baggage cars. If this is a delivery of 20, don't expect so many at a time after that; this would be a matter of "playing catch-up".

 

[Ryan]

 

[Ryan]

Must be something special to send 42 up after them.

 

[NewBags]

Miami/Hialeah Yard is expecting one train to arrive Thursday or Friday with about a dozen cars. Additional delivery batches expected to follow monthly. No idea on the deployment schedule to revenue service, but hope it is quick. Finally some shiny new cars!

 

[jis]

So 20 sounds much more believable given that there are two trains planned to Hialeah.

 

[west point]

The post that this poster made about Atlanta omitted one important item. The Atlanta station is a disaster for passengers.. Passenger going north often stand outside the station waiting for the train. It only has about 6 double back benches and standing room is limited. Baggage service requires 90 minute early check in. The baggage has to use the only passenger elevator to trackside. Delivery for arriving passengers may take 1:15.

The elevator is located incorrectly so that NS has to halt freight traffic as the elevator to boarding crosses one MT.

All wall space is in use so no ATM, extra vending machines, only one Quick Track, other perks as well.

Additional passengers if more seats from ATL will only cause more confusion and delays.

 

[neroden]

The post that this poster made about Atlanta omitted one important item. The Atlanta station is a disaster for passengers.

Yeah, this is one of two reasons why Amtrak really really wants a new Atlanta station ASAP. The other is so that they can run some cars from NY to Atlanta and leave them in Atlanta rather than hauling them all the way to New Orleans.

Unfortunately there is no sign of funding for a new Atlanta station.

 

[Big Iron]

Would I be correct in stating the two trains to Hialeah would run through RVR? Would a non-revenue Amtrak train use the same crew change points as revenue trains.

I'm trying to anticipate picture taking opportunities.

 

[Ryan]

I would think so, yes.

I've been wondering to myself what would be easier, taking ~10 cars onto the end of a Silver Service train, or working with CSX to try and schedule a special move for them.

 

[neroden]

Hmm. Well, CSX is used to running long trains. It's a question of whether the motive power can handle 10 extra trailing cars. If they do run a special, on the other hand, they'd probably want to run all 20 at once...