I did comparisons of some passenger train fares in Europe with Amtrak fares.
This is what I found:
Europe (2nd class)
Paris to Lyon: 244 mi, $104, 42 cents per mile
Paris to Berlin: 546 mi, $142, 26 cents per mile
Paris to Milan: 397 mi, $119, 30 cents per mile
USA
San Francisco to Los Angeles: 377 mi, $51, 14 cents per mile
San Francisco (Emeryville) to Seattle: 786 approx mi $98, 12 cents per mile
San Francisco to Salt Lake City: 730 mi, $74, 10 cents per mile
Maybe - but Amtrak is not competing with Europe but with US aircarriers, bus lines, and automobiles. Even at $2.50 per gallon, my marginal cost to drive is only about 13 cents a mile. That’s what Amtrak is competing with.
Trains in Europe can get twice as much per fare as the price of gasoline is twice as high, if not more… Amtrak fares reflect the price they can sell tickets at, which is a direct link to the prices of air travel and bus travel…in America…not Europe…
Of course, the taxes on gasoline in Europe is much higher, paying for their train service too… which is not the case here in America… The Europeans actually have a modern up to date train service, running several trains daily as opposed to the obsolete daily train service in much of America…
The key statistic is revenue miles… The more frequency and the quicker the times the more revenue there is per mile…
Its been my opinion, and its no secret in this forum, that we need to push on to HSR… which will provide America a state of the art system with much more frequency than what we have now for the same number of equipment…
With businesses like this, you have to be careful and not gouge. Profit by volume is better than gouging just because of competition. However, there is a fine line between that and under-pricing. For the longer distance travel, it might be better to increase prices.
To take the train from St.Catharines to Montreal is about $200 to $300 but ridership is still quite high. From St.Catharines to Toronto is about $25-$40. All depends on how much time you book the ticket.
One of the reasons European railways have developed HSR was that the old speeds of passenger trains were too slow to charge enough. You need busssiness travelers and for that you need speed for short travel times. A fast train can charge more per mile AND cover more miles, not as labour intensive but more technoligical. The European rails would be in a sorry state today if there was no HSR between the biggest populated centers and if they were still using the old method trains. Their rails would be loosing even more money and road and air traffic would be gridlock. It is a more densly populated place then USA. Most citizens in Europe are entiteled to discounts of various types and conditions, only bussiness and tourists pay full price. It is the price that bussiness men will pay that matters.
dldance- 13 cents a mile eh? Well if gas is twice as high in Europe that would be still only 26 cents. Still a bargan, of course you have to buy a car , register it, pay insurance, parking and maintance, for the real cost per mile, and still pay taxes too.
Or at least rent one.
Insurance in Europe is lower then in USA. They also have more fuel efficient cars to choose from to offset the price in gas for travel costs.
Well A/trak has to compete against the jet plane. In my opinion most A/trak customers are elderly & afraid to fly. As they go elsewhere all you will see is a continued dropoff of patronage except in the NEC. Here are some samples of airfares from where I live.
FLL to LV $238.00 R/T via Delta
FLL to Omaha $116.00 R/tT via SW
FLL to Phila $120.00 R/T via US Air (last Dec)
So besides cheap airline rates you get to your destination in hours & not days as with A/trak/[:o)][:D]
If I may I would like to give you a little analogy here between lets us say the turtle & the hare.
I worked for Cunard line who operated the steamships Queen Mary & Queen Elizabeth. Besides being queens of the sea they were usually fully booked every week of the year that they sailed. Now the voyage took 5 days more/less. Now go back in time 48 years to the advent of the 707 & Trans Atlantic flight. In no time flat after the 707s started flying the queens were M/T & within 5 years withdrawn from service. I think that is a pretty good analogy of todays A/trak vs todays jets. [:o)][:D][:p]
Note I said marginal cost per mile. I have to have a car or truck so the registration, license, insurance, and maintenance are a given. I can either chose to drive cross country - which I often do (to the tune of 30 - 40,000 miles per year) or I can fly (which I do about every two weeks) or I can take Amtrak (which I have done once when I had the time).
At the time of my Amtrak trip, I thought the fare was high for a sleeper - but I justified it by including the prices of meals and hotels in my comparison. I must say that Amtrak lived up to my best expectations with great service. I will do it again.
That’s way high. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but It is more like the grant request for Operating Expense is around $700 million. I think that is something less than half than operating revenue, so a 50% increase would do the trick. BIG IF! That works only if you could keep all the business.
dldance- ya ok, it works for you wich is an example. The real big difference between Europe and USA is not realy taxes or gas prices or competition, but population density, wich favors HSR in Europe and the way things are in USA favors the car. Not that there aren’t more millions of cars in Europe then here. But even parts of USA the population is increasing and may catch up to Europe because Europe is not increasing very much. Even the western USA is becoming less western all the time.
dldance- Still even if those costs you say are a given still have to be payed for. Some people who take the train do not have to pay for all that. Nothing realy is a given.
Owning a car and taking the train is a luxury. The best way to live… exept for when comuting.
Well cut the Northeast Corridor from Amtrak and save 30 plus billion amtrak operates 100 of own train to 1200 trains of other railroads in Northeast Corridor is Black Hole of Money Pit, Everything to Corridor not to the National System where it should Go for New Cars like Brand new order of 500 Superliners, 50 New Viewliners Diner Cars, Viewliners Lounge Cars 50 , 150 Viewliners Coaches, 50 Baggage Cars.[:D]