Why aren't overnight trains able to compete with flying?

[Bob Dylan]

Another business ride I would take: I occasionally had business in Greenville, SC. The Crescent worked great -- Leave DC after work, arrive at about 5 AM, Hang out with some coffee until I was picked up. After work, spend a pleasant evening having dinner along the redeveloped main drag in Greenville, then a ride to the station for the ~11 PM northbound departure. OK, it was an Amshack, but at least you could sit inside, and there was a station agent who would tell you how late the train was. Back in DC the next mprning, and back to the office. No need to get a hotel.

Rode this route many times to visit,since my dad, who lived in Pickens, would pick me up, and take me back to the Greenville Station.( occasionaly we'd use the Clemson Station)

 

[Qapla]

Sometimes I think it is not a matter that trains "are not able" to compete with flying - it is more that they are not viewed as being able to ...

It is a perception thing. Most of the arguments I have heard in favor of planes over trains dwell only on the speed of the actual travel time between point A and point B ... of course, in most cases a plane will be much faster - but then, the same can be said of comparing a plane to driving a car, yet many people drive rather that fly - why is that?

It basically comes down to a simple formula ... instead of comparing the actual time in the air as opposed to the time on the road, people consider the entire trip. They look at the convenience of leaving directly from their home and driving directly to their destination. They look at the freedom to stop when they want to. The look at the ability to carry their luggage without a specific limit to the amount or the added expense of paying for each piece of luggage they take. They look at the time it takes to get to and from the airport, the hassles of security checks - There are many other factors that come into play that lead many people to drive even though the actual time from point A to point B takes longer.

The same could be done with taking the train - if only people would quit comparing the time from point A to point B and using this as a determining factor to not consider the train - even many on this forum do that.

If Amtrak would advertise the advantages of train travel, placing emphasis on what trains DO have to offer, maybe people would be less prone to using the actual flight time vs train time as a deciding factor.

As many have tried to point out in this thread - the over all trip can be more comfortable, more relaxed, competitively priced and even quicker (or just as quick) if people would quit using point A to point B as the only thing that matters. It's obvious by the overcrowded nature of the nations highways that people are not using point A to point B time when it comes to deciding to drive rather than fly - the train should compared in the same way instead of dwelling on point A to point B time.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

I think a big issue is that Amtrak really can’t expand. They can’t easily add trains, and they can’t easily add capacity to existing trains.

If Amtrak could add multiple Chicago to NYC trains and advertise them, they would fill up. Same with many other LD services.

 

[MARC Rider]

Another big issue with long distance trains is that the need to be run reliably on schedule. While a lot of this is freight train interference and poor dispatching by the host railroads, Amtrak's aging equipment and shortcomings in maintenance can result in delays that are due to Amtrak, not the freight railroads. Hopefully, the new long-distance Chargers will improve things, but of course there will be a period where they're going to be working the bugs out.

 

[ShiningTimeStL]

This is probably what gets me the most every time I think about Amtrak. The long-distance line is essentially literally not being allowed to be the massive success that it very easily could and should be. It's the freights, who are really run by the soul sucking wraiths of Wall Street. When any measurable increase in profit margin means increased dividends for shareholders, literally nothing else matters--not even peoples' lives. The Big Freight lobby will basically fight Congress to the death to prevent Amtrak from forcing them to comply with preferential dispatching, let alone lengthen their trains and, goodness forbid, add new frequencies on some of the busiest freight corridors. However... it's really only a matter of time before PSR related BS causes a catastrophic incident--like perhaps a train full of sulfuric acid or LNG diving into a subdivision. When that happens, we can hope that the FRA will have the sense and the cajones to practically castrate the Association of American Railroads and finally put them back in their place. Maybe they'll even raise the specter of nationalization. That'll really get them going.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

This is probably what gets me the most every time I think about Amtrak. The long-distance line is essentially literally not being allowed to be the massive success that it very easily could and should be. It's the freights, who are really run by the soul sucking wraiths of Wall Street. When any measurable increase in profit margin means increased dividends for shareholders, literally nothing else matters--not even peoples' lives. The Big Freight lobby will basically fight Congress to the death to prevent Amtrak from forcing them to comply with preferential dispatching, let alone lengthen their trains and, goodness forbid, add new frequencies on some of the busiest freight corridors. However... it's really only a matter of time before PSR related BS causes a catastrophic incident--like perhaps a train full of sulfuric acid or LNG diving into a subdivision. When that happens, we can hope that the FRA will have the sense and the cajones to practically castrate the Association of American Railroads and finally put them back in their place. Maybe they'll even raise the specter of nationalization. That'll really get them going.

Exactly. The mainline railroads should be run as public infrastructure with freight AND passenger lines able to buy blocks of time.

Freight trains should not be able to operate trains beyond the size of available Passing sidings, etc.

 

[user 14106]

They’re plenty competitive if you have an issue with flying or want a low stress journey. If it’s about getting there fast then obviously there’s no contest.

 

[Qapla]

Too much emphasis on speed - if speed were the only issue, Interstate highways would all still be 4 lane roads instead of the mega-roads they have become.

 

[MARC Rider]

They’re plenty competitive if you have an issue with flying or want a low stress journey. If it’s about getting there fast then obviously there’s no contest.

Long-distance train trips aren't always "low stress," especially if you're travelling in coach, the coach is full, and there are poorly-behaved passengers. The lack of food options can also be a problem if you're not well prepared.

 

[west point]

Amtrak needs to target potential passengers who live on the wrong side of the airport. One great example is route 128. To travel from there to say Trenton or another isolated city by air is near impossible. Push the night owl as a sleeper to be able. Can see the targeted ad saying--
" Do you live in SW Boston area. Take Amtrak from route 128 or Providence and avoid the long drive to Logan airport "

If the Crescent had suburban stations in Austell and Duluth Amtrak could make the same kind of targeted ad.
" Live north of downtown Atlanta ? Take Amtrak and avoid the terrible drive to Hartsfield ATL airport " -----------

Run those radio spots during rush hours.

 

[sttom]

Sometimes I think it is not a matter that trains "are not able" to compete with flying - it is more that they are not viewed as being able to ...

It is a perception thing. Most of the arguments I have heard in favor of planes over trains dwell only on the speed of the actual travel time between point A and point B ... of course, in most cases a plane will be much faster - but then, the same can be said of comparing a plane to driving a car, yet many people drive rather that fly - why is that?

It basically comes down to a simple formula ... instead of comparing the actual time in the air as opposed to the time on the road, people consider the entire trip. They look at the convenience of leaving directly from their home and driving directly to their destination. They look at the freedom to stop when they want to. The look at the ability to carry their luggage without a specific limit to the amount or the added expense of paying for each piece of luggage they take. They look at the time it takes to get to and from the airport, the hassles of security checks - There are many other factors that come into play that lead many people to drive even though the actual time from point A to point B takes longer.

The same could be done with taking the train - if only people would quit comparing the time from point A to point B and using this as a determining factor to not consider the train - even many on this forum do that.

If Amtrak would advertise the advantages of train travel, placing emphasis on what trains DO have to offer, maybe people would be less prone to using the actual flight time vs train time as a deciding factor.

As many have tried to point out in this thread - the over all trip can be more comfortable, more relaxed, competitively priced and even quicker (or just as quick) if people would quit using point A to point B as the only thing that matters. It's obvious by the overcrowded nature of the nations highways that people are not using point A to point B time when it comes to deciding to drive rather than fly - the train should compared in the same way instead of dwelling on point A to point B time.

Another thing that also needs to be factored in isn't just time, but distance. As I have pointed out a few different times, the average long distance trips we take are between 100 and 300 miles with respects to ground transportation. These distances are generally too short to fly and depending on the geography could lend itself to overnight trains, but mostly these trips would be day time trips.

As for length of trip timewise, the trains need to be able to let someone sleep between the two terminal stations. The selling point to businesses would be dropping at least a night off the hotel bill depending on how long someone is going to be traveling. To the individual business traveler, being able to leave from a station closer to home would be a good selling point. For example, I recently went on a 6 hour road trip that barely hit the 300 mile line. I could have flown, but driving into San Francisco would have been more painful than just driving direct. If I could have taken a train, I would have considered it.

Which isn't to say Amtrak doesn't need to 1) have more overnight trains 2) offer a more compelling product and 3) advertise them more. Trains can be successful if someone would dare run them well.

 

[allanorn]

I don’t think even Nightjet promotes their trains towards business travelers. Most business travelers have their expenses paid by the client, and businesses can deduct parts of that for tax reasons as expenses. I think they’ve based their marketing strategies on tourism.

Having said that - the more I think about this, the more I think it’s really an infrastructure problem - especially for NYC-Chicago. Someone would have to solve three problems: adequate sleeper car capacity, available slots for arrivals at NY Penn/GCT and Chicago Union Station, and reliably (>90%) getting the travel time down to the 10-hour range.

19 hours on a train isn’t going to cut it for a business traveler. If I’m on business and need to get to the other city for meetings the next day, I need that train to leave mid-evening and arrive around 7am local… certainly not later than 7:30am. A 10-hour train ride should give enough scheduling flexibility to make that happen, assuming that the arrival train station has the capacity to take that train on during peak AM rush hour into the city.

Sleeper car capacity is a capital budget problem - just order more sleeping cars after you demonstrate route viability.

The real question is what track improvements are needed to get the train to make 10-hour NYP-CHI runs at night. Does that take 125mph track most everywhere, or just incremental improvements to the 90-110 range? How much would it all cost? Factor in a couple of stops in cities for pickup/dropoff and maybe a dark-o’clock stop in Pittsburgh and/or Cleveland as well.

If you can’t get this done without any sort of actual HSR (> 150mph), it’s probably just time to build full HSR for the corridor.

 

[Cal]

The real question is what track improvements are needed to get the train to make 10-hour NYP-CHI runs at night. Does that take 125mph track most everywhere, or just incremental improvements to the 90-110 range? How much would it all cost? Factor in a couple of stops in cities for pickup/dropoff and maybe a dark-o’clock stop in Pittsburgh and/or Cleveland as well.

I did some quick math, it could very well be wrong.

If you were to make a completely straight track from New York to Chicago and make it all at 100mph, you should be able to do it in about 8 hours. However, the current routes are far from straight, so you would need to upgrade them considerable more to get in that 10 hour range.

If you lose padding you could lose about 40-60 minutes already, however if you're keeping padding you actually need it to get down to 9 hours. Which would require more upgrades.

 

[sttom]

A 12 hour trip also isn't terrible for an overnight hop. The train leaving the terminal stations at 7pm for a 7am arrival wouldn't break the bank time wise. Especially if you live in a suburb around a big city and are on the opposite side of the airport. I would use such a train to get to LA if I needed to and it existed since I'm closer to an Amtrak station than I am to SFO. A 7pm departure from Sacramento would take more than an hour to get to where I live so I'd actually be leaving the station sometime after 8pm. Which even at my old 7:00-3:30 job, would leave plenty of time to get home and eat before heading to the station.

 

[allanorn]

If you were to make a completely straight track from New York to Chicago and make it all at 100mph, you should be able to do it in about 8 hours. However, the current routes are far from straight, so you would need to upgrade them considerable more to get in that 10 hour range.

If you lose padding you could lose about 40-60 minutes already, however if you're keeping padding you actually need it to get down to 9 hours. Which would require more upgrades.

That's why I think it's an infrastructure problem, assuming economic viability. If the current routes date back to the Interwar period (at best) or the Gilded Age (at worst), that will require a lot of route-straightening. There's probably a point at which a passenger-only HSR route starts looking palatable in place of all those upgrades (just run the night train on those tracks) - I just don't know what that point is.

A 12 hour trip also isn't terrible for an overnight hop. The train leaving the terminal stations at 7pm for a 7am arrival wouldn't break the bank time wise. Especially if you live in a suburb around a big city and are on the opposite side of the airport. I would use such a train to get to LA if I needed to and it existed since I'm closer to an Amtrak station than I am to SFO. A 7pm departure from Sacramento would take more than an hour to get to where I live so I'd actually be leaving the station sometime after 8pm. Which even at my old 7:00-3:30 job, would leave plenty of time to get home and eat before heading to the station.

My back-of-the-napkin assumptions were as follows:

• Business travelers generally have to make 9am meetings on time. Sometimes they can make 8am meetings if it's a reliable train and their meeting is close to the train station, or they can get a cab.
• Assume 60-90 minutes from the train station to the 9am meeting location.
• Assume also that 90 minutes is sufficient to make it from your previous location to the departure train station.
• For Chicago-NYC, you "lose" an hour to the time zone change.
• Add in some fudge-factors for platform scheduling, padding, and dwell time as needed.
• You don't want to have a departure time that is too early. Our intrepid businessperson may still be working on a deal at 5pm, and leaving the office at 6pm isn't all that unheard of. A departure time right at peak PM rush may also be a problem with platform and track capacity.

The last point is why a 25% time improvement isn't helpful here. If NYC-CHI takes 14.5 hours instead of 19, a 7am arrival means you're leaving at 5:30pm from NYP, or perhaps a little earlier. (It's 3:30pm from CHI to NYP.) That's starting to crimp what can get done during the day. Anything much earlier than that starts making same-day flights to a hotel a more reasonable possibility - which defeats the purpose of an overnight train from a business proposition. My assumption thus is that overnight trains should generally run 8-ish pm to 7am (local times) or thereabouts.

So for our intrepid traveler from NYP to CHI can leave work at 6-7pm, head downtown, maybe get a decent meal, arrive at NYP at 9:30pm to board the train. Obviously you'd have to leave the Chicago office around 5pm to make it work similarly.

 

[zephyr17]

In 1961, the ultimate businessman's train, NYC's 20th Century Limited, left Grand Central Terminal at 6:00 pm, and arrived at LaSalle Stree at 9:00 am. Eastbound, it left LaSalle at 4:30 pm and arrived at GCT at 9:30 am.

The Pennsy's Broadway Limited ran exactly the same time westbound, leaving Penn Station at 6:00pm, arriving Chicago Union at 9:00 am. Eastbound, it had a 1/2 hour shorter schedule, leaving Chicago at 5:00 pm and arriving at Penn Station at 9:30 am

 

[west point]

I challenge the NYP <> CHI assumptions. There might be a large contingent for intermediate stations. Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Erie? Buffalo. from either CHI or NYP airline service is not as convenient.

 

[Danib62]

I actually just booked a sleeper journey that schedule-wise worked out better than flying. We're travelling BBY-WAS and needed a flight that either left after 9p or arrived before 7a the next day. Nothing fit the bill but the viewliner on train #67 works perfectly! And with a companion coupon it was actually decently priced ($289 for 2).

 

[sttom]

That's why I think it's an infrastructure problem, assuming economic viability. If the current routes date back to the Interwar period (at best) or the Gilded Age (at worst), that will require a lot of route-straightening. There's probably a point at which a passenger-only HSR route starts looking palatable in place of all those upgrades (just run the night train on those tracks) - I just don't know what that point is.



My back-of-the-napkin assumptions were as follows:

• Business travelers generally have to make 9am meetings on time. Sometimes they can make 8am meetings if it's a reliable train and their meeting is close to the train station, or they can get a cab.
• Assume 60-90 minutes from the train station to the 9am meeting location.
• Assume also that 90 minutes is sufficient to make it from your previous location to the departure train station.
• For Chicago-NYC, you "lose" an hour to the time zone change.
• Add in some fudge-factors for platform scheduling, padding, and dwell time as needed.
• You don't want to have a departure time that is too early. Our intrepid businessperson may still be working on a deal at 5pm, and leaving the office at 6pm isn't all that unheard of. A departure time right at peak PM rush may also be a problem with platform and track capacity.

The last point is why a 25% time improvement isn't helpful here. If NYC-CHI takes 14.5 hours instead of 19, a 7am arrival means you're leaving at 5:30pm from NYP, or perhaps a little earlier. (It's 3:30pm from CHI to NYP.) That's starting to crimp what can get done during the day. Anything much earlier than that starts making same-day flights to a hotel a more reasonable possibility - which defeats the purpose of an overnight train from a business proposition. My assumption thus is that overnight trains should generally run 8-ish pm to 7am (local times) or thereabouts.

So for our intrepid traveler from NYP to CHI can leave work at 6-7pm, head downtown, maybe get a decent meal, arrive at NYP at 9:30pm to board the train. Obviously you'd have to leave the Chicago office around 5pm to make it work similarly.

My point is also getting at the notion that there are more City pairs where this works than just New York and Chicago. Also, if you're working so late with other people on a day you know you're traveling up until a 7pm departure time, that's on you for being bad at time management, not Amtrak's schedule setting abilities.

 

[jruff001]

In 1961, the ultimate businessman's train, NYC's 20th Century Limited, left Grand Central Terminal at 6:00 pm, and arrived at LaSalle Stree at 9:00 am. Eastbound, it left LaSalle at 4:30 pm and arrived at GCT at 9:30 am.

The Pennsy's Broadway Limited ran exactly the same time westbound, leaving Penn Station at 6:00pm, arriving Chicago Union at 9:00 am. Eastbound, it had a 1/2 hour shorter schedule, leaving Chicago at 5:00 pm and arriving at Penn Station at 9:30 am

There were not any other faster options in the heyday of the 20th Century and Broadway Limiteds.

 

[zephyr17]

There were not any other faster options in the heyday of the 20th Century and Broadway Limiteds.

Well, by '61 (or indeed pretty much anytime after WW II) you could fly in a few hours. And business travelers by '61 were deserting in favor of the airlines in droves.

 

[jruff001]

Well, by '61 (or indeed pretty much anytime after WW II) you could fly in a few hours. And business travelers by '61 were deserting in favor of the airlines in droves.

Yes, that was my point. 1961 was certainly past the heyday and business travelers were deserting trains for the faster jets. Hardly any will accept 20th C / B-way Ltd travel times today.

 

[Old MM]

In 1961, the ultimate businessman's train, NYC's 20th Century Limited, left Grand Central Terminal at 6:00 pm, and arrived at LaSalle Stree at 9:00 am. Eastbound, it left LaSalle at 4:30 pm and arrived at GCT at 9:30 am.

The Pennsy's Broadway Limited ran exactly the same time westbound, leaving Penn Station at 6:00pm, arriving Chicago Union at 9:00 am. Eastbound, it had a 1/2 hour shorter schedule, leaving Chicago at 5:00 pm and arriving at Penn Station at 9:30 am

In 1961.
What has happened, why does life have less promise now.
I could not care less about billionaire space junkets, or electric car tunnels.
Why can't we have train travel options that are as good as 60 or 80 years ago?

 

[sttom]

In 1961.
What has happened, why does life have less promise now.
I could not care less about billionaire space junkets, or electric car tunnels.
Why can't we have train travel options that are as good as 60 or 80 years ago?

We can't have good transit cause something something self driving cars.

 

[zephyr17]

In 1961.
What has happened, why does life have less promise now.
I could not care less about billionaire space junkets, or electric car tunnels.
Why can't we have train travel options that are as good as 60 or 80 years ago?

What happened was airlines drained away the business travel that these trains depended on. Their clientele evaporated.