June 14 is the 80th anniversary of the second-oldest continuously operated name train in America (the Sunset Limited was inaugurated in 1894). Although the days of tudor decor and on-board barber are long gone, Superliner accommodations rival those available at any other time in history or place on the globe.
“One can’t help but look at this train, the people and places it serves, and the effort its crew and managers put into its operation, and bet that if any Amtrak long-distance survives for another generation to enjoy, it’ll be this one. Roll on, Empire Builder!” (Joe Welsh, Trains special issue, June, 2004).
Never rode the GN version of the Empire Builder but we did ride the Amtrak version from Vancouver Wn. To Milwaukee Wi. five years ago. The service was excellent. We went first class with a bedroom.
The food was top notch and the dining car employees great folks. BNSF kept us mostly on timeeastbound arriving Milwaukee only ten minutes late.
The best pre Amtrak train I rode was NP’s North Coast Limited. Others have included the San Francisco Chief, Rio Grande Zephyr and BC Rail’s Cariboo Dayliner to Prince George from the other Vancouver.
It has been 40+ years since I last set foot on a airliner. With the hassle and poor service I will never fly again.
I rode the eb EB on its 60th anniversary from Glacier Park East to Columbus, WI. It arrived GPE 25 minutes late. An hour late into the Twin Cities. We were 10 minutes early into Columbus. I rode coach on a Superliner. Very enjoyable. Neat to see elk and coyote along the route in Montana. Milepost after milepost in 45 seconds. Smooth, quiet ride except for stick rail Fargo to Grand Forks.
I have only been on the Empire Builder from Seattle to Sand Point. But after enjoying ONE wonderful, $400 night on the Coast Starlight shortly after we met, my wife-to-be decided to bring her best friend–who will not fly–and husband from Virginia to Seattle by train for our wedding. Well, do the math: they were on trains EIGHT nights. It was the most expensive part of our wedding!!
But for them it was the trip of a lifetime. They took the Crescent to DC where her friend was able to pay last respects to Ronald Reagan. But the big treat was being on the Empire Builder for its 75th anniversary run. There were festivities and dignitaries all along the way! At one station, they asked some guy to take their picture–turned out he was the Governor of North Dakota!!
I rode the Empire Builder from Milwaukee to Portland in December 2006. It was one of my better trips on Amtrak. The winter scenery was spectacular. I had a roomette, which was OK. The Superliner roomettes are not the most comfortable accommodation in the world, but they are passable. The service was good. The wine tasting for first class passengers was very enjoyable. The only real downer was that approximately half of the toilets on the train froze up and the crew could not free them.
In FY08 the Empire Builder lost 9.9 cents per passenger mile before interest, depreciation, and other charges. For the first six months of FY09 it lost 17.8 cents per passenger mile before interest and depreciation. Part of the increase in the loss in FY09 is due to an accounting change.
A passenger traveling from Chicago to Seattle during the first six months of FY09 received a federal subsidy payment of $392.67 before interest and depreciation or approximately $491.93 including all allocated items. In FY08 the subsidy would have been $218.39 and $240.23.
The financial performance of the Empire Builder is better than any of Amtrak’s long distance trains save the Auto Train. Taxpayers should ride the train; they are paying for it irrespective of whether they use it.
If Amtrak was a real business, it would fly each passenger from Chicago to Seattle for an average fare of $164, thereby saving the federal treasury $327.93 for each passenger carried end point to end point.
Long distance trains are a 1950s anachronism. They should be discontinued and the funds wasted on them should be re-directed toward the enhancement or development of moderate speed corridors where they make sense.
Okay, Sam, I’ll be honest here. Superliner roomettes are NOT the finest accommodations on the third rock from the Sun; indeed, for two people they are downright cramped. I’d take an open section any day (and be even happier at night!). But in my opinion, room F is something really special because it has windows on both sides (only possible on a bi-level sleeper); deluxe rooms are great, and the coach seats–where most passengers ride–are unbeatable. The lounge cars are fantastic, especially when they had the upstairs bar open.
And speaking of subsidies, I had an interesting experience on our trip from Sand Point to Seattle. We had booked a roomette, but asked on-board to upgrade to a deluxe room. Space was available, but they made me deboard at Spokane and get new tickets. Due to load management marketing, the ticket agent gave me a $5.00 REFUND for the upgrade! Service on that trip was okay; the porter made us vacate our room for cleaning before arrival. But that was a good excuse for my wife and I to act out a fantasy in the downstairs shower… I was in fact rather distracted by the fact that the shower drains directly onto the tracks, and couldn’t keep my mind out of the gutter…
I am not sure why this train showed a 16% drop in ridership for April (see “AMTRAK APR 09 Performance” thread). The weather up here has been chilly, and the economy is experiencing an ice age.
First trip on Empire Builder was in February 1947 when the first streamlined version of the train was brand new. Traveled with my mother and brother from Seattle to St. Paul. This became an every year trip beginning in 1950 until I departed for the Navy in 1960. I rode most other name trains in the west but the EB always held a special place in my memories. I even enjoy the Amtrak version. Happy birthday to a great train. And as for the subsidy by the taxpayers the last time I looked I am still one of those also. If that is the only way I can get some of my money back from the government so be it. It’s not like the government doesn’t waste any money on many other things.
For the same reason that I take two or three Amtrak trips a year. It is there, and I am paying for it irrespective of whether I use it. I like trains, but I am not blind to the fact that Amtrak’s long distance trains generate a small percentage of its revenues while consuming the lion’s share of its operating expenses.
During FY08 the long distance trains generated 22.49 per cent of Amtrak’s revenues whilst accounting for 209 per cent of the operating expenses before interest, depreciation, and other charges. In other words, they wiped out the $369 million generated by the North East corridor and then some. They had an average load percentage of 58.9, which means that they operated well below capacity, except for the heavy vacation and holiday periods. Less than 15 per cent of Amtrak’s passengers were carried on the long distance trains. And less than 4/10s of one per cent of intercity travelers choosing a commercial carrier opted for Amtrak’s long distance trains. The financials associated with the long distance trains are abysmal.
I’ll continue to ride them as long as they run. And I will continue to write to my Congressional representatives urging them to stop funding Amtrak’s long distance trains.
Gee Willikers, Sam. I don’t really get your reasoning but let me try to get it straight. You don’t want Amtrak/the Government to offer a service that you enjoy riding. Now I also enjoy trains and do see a purpose for LD trains because they provide a safe, affordable way both to see the country and to provide service to small and medium towns that wouldn’t have public transportation if the trains didn’t exist. But it is because of riders like you that raise passenger numbers and make Amtrak and other passenger rail advocates believe that there actually are people out there who need LD trains.
Doesn’t the total cost of owning/running the NEC dwarf the rest of Amtrak operations? Individual states partially fund shorter distance trains elsewhere. For the most part, Amtrak rents track space and in many cases stations?
I to rode amtrak from Milwaukee,Wi to White Fish,Mt going to a wedding in Missoula,Mt.In August of 05’ we rode first class for 3 adults 1 toddler, and 1 baby.On the return we went into Chicago,Il. And then toke the Hiawatha to Sturavant,Wi,Do to track work between Minnesota and Milwaukee,Wi. BLAST AWESOME RIDE!!![yeah][dinner][bow] [#offtopic] Minus riding with our occomadater[xx(]
I don’t need long distance trains, nor do most Americans, as indicated by the fact that less than one per cent of intercity travelers use them. They are safe and enjoyable, but they are not affordable. If they were Amtrak could charge enough to cover their costs. As it is, Amtrak cannot charged enough to cover the operating expenses, let alone the fully allocated costs, associated with the long distance trains. If they did, they would lose most of their passengers.
To think that one train a day, stopping in many instances in the middle of the night, is a viable service for most communities is a stretch of the imagination. Moreover, in most instances, people have a viable alternative.
In Texas, for example, only one of the communities served by Amtrak is more than a 2 hours drive from an airport with reasonable commercial air service. All of them have reasonable intercity bus service.
There may be a few cities served by Amtrak that would incur a hardship if their one train a day was eliminated, but they are only a handful.
I doubt there are many riders like me. How many do you think urge their Con
There is more than one side to the issue of whether Amtrak should continue to run long distance trains. I could just as easily argue that the amount of money lost by them, indeed Amtrak, is very small compared to the federal budget and deficit and, therefore, we should not worry about it. But this is a mindset that I don’t agree with. Losing a little bit of money here and there is not a smart way to run a business or the government.
Amtrak could save approximately $515 million per year if it discontinued the long distance trains. Using 2050 as a target date, the annual savings would equal $21.1 billion on a straight line basis and $103.1 billion compounded. This would pay for the relocation of the UP’s trains around Austin and a whole lot more.
I rode several Amtrak Superliner trains on a cross-country trip at the end of 1977, but the special issue of Trains for the EB’s 75th anniversary says the first use of Superliners on that train was October 28, 1979. It was still using “heritage” equipment for its 50th anniversary. Why was this so?
I’ve had two enjoyable trips on the Empire Builder - one from the Twin Cities to Glasgow, Montana back in '78 (when it still used the former GN mainline betwee
You have broken the first commandment of ranters. “Read first, then rant.”
The EB helps neither of these even a meaningful, small amount.
There are no traffic jams on I-94 in North Dakota. Or Montana. Or western Minnesota. Or the Idaho panhandle. Or accross Washington to the Cascades.
The EB uses virtually the same amount of fuel per passenger mile as a car or a plane. In fact, a minivan with 4 people in it uses less fuel than the train.
Sam is most certainly not anti-passenger rail, if you’ve read any of her many, many posts, you’d know this.
Just what American needs. Passenger service to the middle of nowhere. Dubuque + Cedar Falls + Waterloo < 250,000 people. [sigh]
The vehicle that will make the biggest improvement in congestion and fuel economy on that route is a bus (a small one!)
Attack me for ranting I guess but actually I’m quite aware of Sam’s previous posts and her apathy towards long-distance trains. I guess the question to ask here is would this country really be better off if we decided to - right now - just simply pull the plug on ALL long-distance trains; I mean just pull the plug on everything outside of the Northeast Corridor. I mean, if Sam’s right, then there won’t be any repercussions if we simply kept rail passenger service relegated to the Northeast Corridor and also for a