Why doesn't Amtrak run significantly longer trains?

[TheCrescent]

The SEPTA/NJT connection really doesn't work all that well anymore. At the start of the pandemic SEPTA started not timing the connections in Trenton and they haven't remedied that. It's a terrible setup because nobody should be taking a regional or high speed train to go 90 miles. That's purely an intercity express train territory. It's stupid Amtrak capacity gets so used up in that corridor.

Plenty of people in Midtown Manhattan race down to Philadelphia for a meeting or to the airport, and they take the Acela. I do. If people are willing to pay $200 for a 90 mile trip, why wouldn’t Amtrak take their money?

 

[daybeers]

Plenty of people in Midtown Manhattan race down to Philadelphia for a meeting or to the airport, and they take the Acela. I do. If people are willing to pay $200 for a 90 mile trip, why wouldn’t Amtrak take their money?

Because it's the wrong service for it. AmtrakMaineiac is right; fast intercity trains need to come back on the NYP-PHL section. It's not about making money off it (of which the fares are ridiculous), but rather about putting passengers on the appropriate trains that fit their origin and destination pattern.

It should be:
-local commuter train
-express commuter train
-regional train (I think NYP-PHL would go here, making stops in TRE and NWK)
-high speed train
-long-distance train

in order of dispatch priority, seat allocation, and scheduling. Ideally nobody should be using the LD trains for local travel, as they take up seats someone going much further could use instead. They need to get off the corridor as quickly as possible. If only the equipment was qualified for 125... High speed trains should be used for farther distances, like WAS-NYP. 90 mile trips should be done on an express regional train.

It's silly that the Regionals make so many stops between PHL and NYP, especially while in the highest speed running around. The connections between the classes of service above should be timed tightly. For example there's no need to stop at EWR for most regionals. You should be able to get off at TRE or NWK and take an NJ Transit train running hot on the regional's tail. This should be able to be done in the Amtrak reservation system for only a couple dollars extra.

 

[TheCrescent]

Because it's the wrong service for it. AmtrakMaineiac is right; fast intercity trains need to come back on the NYP-PHL section. It's not about making money off it (of which the fares are ridiculous), but rather about putting passengers on the appropriate trains that fit their origin and destination pattern.

It should be:
-local commuter train
-express commuter train
-regional train (I think NYP-PHL would go here, making stops in TRE and NWK)
-high speed train
-long-distance train

in order of dispatch priority, seat allocation, and scheduling. Ideally nobody should be using the LD trains for local travel, as they take up seats someone going much further could use instead. They need to get off the corridor as quickly as possible. If only the equipment was qualified for 125... High speed trains should be used for farther distances, like WAS-NYP. 90 mile trips should be done on an express regional train.

It's silly that the Regionals make so many stops between PHL and NYP, especially while in the highest speed running around. The connections between the classes of service above should be timed tightly. For example there's no need to stop at EWR for most regionals. You should be able to get off at TRE or NWK and take an NJ Transit train running hot on the regional's tail. This should be able to be done in the Amtrak reservation system for only a couple dollars extra.

So if I want to pay a fare to Amtrak that is highly profitable, in order to take the Acela for a short trip, Amtrak shouldn’t be allowed to provide the service I want, and I shouldn’t be allowed to use the service, even though there is a profitable market for that service?

There are plenty if people who will take the Acela but wouldn’t take another train, regardless of the fare. If the Acela makes a profit for Amtrak by hauling those people, and Amtrak would make less profit by using the Acela for other trips, Amtrak couldn’t serve those people?

 

[daybeers]

So if I want to pay a fare to Amtrak that is highly profitable, in order to take the Acela for a short trip, Amtrak shouldn’t be allowed to provide the service I want, and I shouldn’t be allowed to use the service, even though there is a profitable market for that service?

There are plenty if people who will take the Acela but wouldn’t take another train, regardless of the fare. If the Acela makes a profit for Amtrak by hauling those people, and Amtrak would make less profit by using the Acela for other trips, Amtrak couldn’t serve those people?

Do you really think public transportation should be about making a profit? How many people do you think are priced out of PHL-NYP except when it's the lowest Saver fare of $18, which is now never available on any Fridays or Sundays? How many people would drive instead, or just not make the trip? $2.20/mile is very different from 20¢/mile.

I'm saying it's the wrong service for that pattern. If people don't want to take another train but the Acela, then the equipment and stopping patterns of the other options aren't good enough. But I still believe someone going 220, 300+ miles on a high-speed train shouldn't be priced out of their trip because someone wants their 90 mile trip to be 10 minutes faster.

 

[TheCrescent]

Do you really think public transportation should be about making a profit?

Where did I state that?

If Amtrak can provide some services at a profit, resulting in more funds available for improvement of the Amtrak system overall, do you object to that?

 

[Mailliw]

I've never had any trouble with Canadian border guards. I did once get asked why I was taking the train, but I just said I don't like flying and that was that.

 

[west point]

Short distances on Acela should be held out until say 30 hours before scheduled departure leaving it for longer distances.

As for longer trains with ~~ 60%+ various passenger cars out of service what can we expect? Longer trains will gradually come when the OOS gets down to 10% or less.
NOTE: Figure comes from source that am not entirely confident.

 

[Ziv]

Longer trains absolutely make more sense economically, as the marginal cost of adding cars to a train is low. The problem for Amtrak is it doesn't have enough equipment to do this even in normal times, and now it apparently sidelined a bunch of its cars during the pandemic.

In fact, Amtrak ran much longer trains before the heritage cars were phased out in the early '90s. I can remember seeing the Crescent running with 14-15 cars in that era, compared with the 9-car sets that were standard in the pre-pandemic years, and the Lake Shore used to run with 17-18 cars west of Albany.

So a lot of the constraints on Amtrak's long-distance service are a result of equipment decisions made in the mid-90s. They've adapted to these limits by using revenue-management (read sharply higher fares, especially for sleeper space), but the reality is that they have the capacity to carry many fewer passengers than they had 30 years ago.

That's why I'm hoping a good chunk of the new infrastructure funding will get used for new cars for both short- and long-distance services -- not just to replace existing cars but to expand the fleet. Without that, there won't be much latitude to grow existing services, let alone expand the network.

Amtrak is in a good position right now to remedy a lot of wrongs, they have a great short term supply of money and they need to try to figure out what will benefit the American train riding public the most. And buying pre-existing designs of sleeper cars may be one of the best short term investments that will yield long term results. Trains that are longer by even a single sleeper car will give a better bottom line for Amtrak.
I wish we could get new SuperLiners, but Siemens single level cars are being built now, and even if it will take years to get them delivered, buying them now is probably the best thing Amtrak can do. Even a small order of 70 sleeper cars would help Amtrak a good deal.
But only if Amtrak's management actually wants to use them and see them succeed.
Coach cars are nice, but sleeper cars are probably where the most dollars, and profit, can be found.

 

[fdaley]

Amtrak is in a good position right now to remedy a lot of wrongs, they have a great short term supply of money and they need to try to figure out what will benefit the American train riding public the most. And buying pre-existing designs of sleeper cars may be one of the best short term investments that will yield long term results. Trains that are longer by even a single sleeper car will give a better bottom line for Amtrak.
I wish we could get new SuperLiners, but Siemens single level cars are being built now, and even if it will take years to get them delivered, buying them now is probably the best thing Amtrak can do. Even a small order of 70 sleeper cars would help Amtrak a good deal.
But only if Amtrak's management actually wants to use them and see them succeed.
Coach cars are nice, but sleeper cars are probably where the most dollars, and profit, can be found.

I agree that even one additional sleeper per existing train would help. Of course, Amtrak would need to do something about meal service on the eastern trains if it hopes to attract and retain the riders to fill these cars. And as you suggest, some of us are not exactly fully confident that the current management will do the right thing, especially in regard to expanding long-distance capacity and services.

 

[west point]

A quick math problem. About 15 LD trips initiate every day. figure on 7 days a week add 16 V-1 a day. Average fare 852, 852, 731, 654.
SL = 950. 1100, 1100. 1050, 1500
For just a passenger each train the revenue is
V-1s = 3100
SLs = 5700

Low ball 30 Passenger V-1 and Sl = 40 So we have
V1s = $93,000 And SL =$228,000

For a t0tal additional revenue of approximately $321,000
Additional revenue per day if one additional sleeper each train.
Per month almost $ 9,630,000 per month.
Realize that these figures can be way off by 1/2 lower or 1/2 higher.

 

[Railspike]

I was interested in the revenue generated by the LD's as well. I looked up 3 random days in July on the CZ from CHI-DEN. My thought was not everyone goes the distance from CHI-EMY so Denver was about half way.

I assumed 50% occupancy for coach and roomettes and 75% for bedrooms.
There are 148 coach seats on the CZ @ $100 x 50% = $7400.
There are 28 roomettes @ $661 x 50% = $9254. This does not include the transition car roomettes.
There are 10 bedrooms @ $1339 x 75% = $10,042. This does not include the family bedroom or HC room.
Total $26,696.50. And this is just to Denver.

I'm aware of Amtrak's flawed accounting procedures and I don't have a clue about cost of crews, maintenance, food, supplies, vouchers, etc. Could Amtrak actually be making money on some of their LD trains?

 

[jis]

The per route YTD revenue numbers are published each month, and that is one number that is precisely known. See for example the last page of:

March FY 2022 Monthly Performance Report

The only per train cost numbers we have seen are also in these reports and unfortunately those are the so called fully allocated numbers which as has been discussed are not terribly useful to analyze individual route performance. The only source of direct cost numbers are the other document that has been discussed in this thread:

https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/cost-allocation.81928/
The discussion of whether Amtrak is actually making money on individual trains by some measure, should probably move to the Cost Allocation thread quoted above.

 

[user 13416]

I just entered on Friday, and the CBSA agent at the Pacific Highway bus crossing appeared not to know there even was a train across Canada, or what VIA was.

Had to show him my tickets.

Agree with you about CBSA. Some of the most disagreeable border agents I have ever encountered anywhere are the CBSA agents on the BC-Washington border.

I had a similar encounter trying to enter Canada from NY to Ontario in 2016. First, a mid-forties (at the time) single white dude driving a Wrangler and crossing the border late in the evening after having been parked all day at the Niagara Falls State Park in NY is apparently enough for the red flag to go up and the border agent in the booth to tell me to park and go inside. Once inside, I was interviewed by a less-than-impressed border agent who wondered why I would ever come visit the Canada's Wonderland theme park instead of driving to Florida and visiting Mickey "like a normal person". It wasn't the only reason I was visiting, that was just a small part of a entire week in Toronto but that's the part of the trip she focused on and made a federal case out of. I later figured out that the idiot in front of me was caught smuggling Cuban cigars (seriously? that idiot was THAT cliché?) and the border agents suspected I was in cahoots with him because I happened to be in line behind him at the crossing. At the end of it the border agent literally threw my passport at my face and said "Fine, you're clear. Go."


All that aside, I had a wonderful week in the Toronto area. Rode the metro to downtown and marched right past the CN tower to the Toronto Railway Museum and Roundhouse Park. Bought a hot dog, chips, and Pepsi from a food truck, sat on a bench and had lunch in the shadow of an old engine. It was an amazing afternoon that would have made that border agent's head explode