Atlanta-New Orleans weekday’Crescent’ shutdown also set to begin
Twice weekly for the Sunset Limited! Very few people in the communities served will even notice.
The Sunset Limited may have been sold out on January 4th, but it probably was due to the heavy holiday period traffic. For FY18 the average load factor for the Sunset Lmited was 49%.
It was on-time at its end points an average of 49.4% in FY18, which was down from 68.3% in FY17.
In FY18 the Sunset Limited had an adjusted operating loss of $35.1 million compared to $34.8 million in FY17.
Amtrak should use this opportunity to discontinue the Sunset Limited. It is not a serious passenger transportation option for all but a tiny fraction of the population.
Wonder why it could have been run a different day keeping it 3 days a week ?
I remember that before the hurricane ended the New Orleans to Jacksonville part, someone in Bush’s DOT stated that the Federal subsidy for someone traveling on it one-way coast-to-coast was something like $930. He went on to say that it would be way cheaper for Amtrak to take the paid coach fair, contribute $100-$200, and buy the coach passenger an airline ticket.
In FY17 the average subsidy for a Sunset Limited passenger was 45 cents per passenger mile.
The distance from New Orleans to LAX is 1,995 miles. A passenger traveling from NO to LAX would require a subsidy of $897.75 for the rail fare alone. On top of that, assuming h/she eats in the dining car or lounge car, she gets at least five subsidized meals.
A non-stop flight on Southwest Airlines on January 30 could cost as little as $99 for a Wanna-Get-Away fare. The flight would take 4 hours, 35 minutes. United Airlines has business class fares starting at $439 for the same date. Both fares are for noon flights. Some earlier or later flights have substantially higher fares.
Only about 10 percent of the Amtrak’s long-distance passengers ride end point to end point. So, as the argument goes, the cost comparisons change dramatically if one is comparing the cost of riding the Sunset Limited from Alpine, TX to Tucson, AZ as an example. Air is out of the question or costs an arm and a leg on regional carriers. True.! But driving or
And of course, some handicapped and elderly would be deprived of their mobility, and businesses dependent on tourism would suffer considerably, some going out of business.
Dave, get serious. I’m elderly by any stretch of the imagination and I’ve given up traveling overnight by train because it is too uncomfortable and difficult and I am not handicapped in the least. Those that are should forget the train and fly when they can because the planes are more handicapped friendly with the sky bridge right ot the door and even wheelchairs that fit the aisle. No steps to climb or attendents who don’t want to go to the dining car to get your meals. If i was handicapped I can’t imagine a worse form of transportation. And, any tourist business that relies on the meazley number of passengers off the Sunset Limited is probably losing money anyway and shouldn’t be in business to begin with.
Arguably, one of the most visited tourist stops along the route of the Sunset Limited is San Antonio. Last year, according to San Antonio’s Travel and Tourism Bureau, 24.9 million people visited the Alamo City for leisure and 6.2 million arrived for business meeting, many of which were conventions. It is a great convention city. Most of the people visiting San Antonio fly or drive to the city.
In 2017, 57,048 passengers got on or off of the Texas Eagle or the Sunset Limited in San Antonio. The Texas Eagle has 14 San Antonio departures or arrivals daily; the Sunset Limited has six. Assuming the same proportional relationship for entraining and detraining, approximately 17,114 riders got on or off the Sunset Limited in San Antonio in 2017. Assuming they were all tourists, their percentage of the tourists visiting the Alamo City was .0687.
If Amtrak discontinued the Sunset Limited or the Texas Eagle, assuming the passengers they carry to or from San Antonio would not use alternative transportation, the tourist needle would not budge.
[quote user=“daveklepper”]
“And of course, some handicapped and elderly would be deprived of their mobility, and businesses dependent on tourism would suffer considerably, some going out of business.”
I’m no spring chicken and my late wife had problems walking. We still greatly preferred flying, especially Southwestern, over long rides on Amtrak. I can’t conceive of any tourist business depended on Amtrak. Even the tourists Amtrak carries down to FL are a very, very small drop in the bucket.
Amtrak is just emulating its predecessor - Class 1 railroads. Make the ‘service’ so horrible only those in a vegatative state will consent to use it.
Instead of a chicken and egg situation this lack of service and not having at least 2 toud trips on each route 12 hours apart is turning into =======
A chicken and rotten egg situation !
Amtrak has nothing to do with the 7-week hiatus. It is the Class 1 BNSF’s mauntenance that is the reason.
If your talking about the Sunset Limited, I am pretty sure the issue is the Union Pacific’s maintenance window not with the BNSF.
Additionally, Union Pacific gave Amtrak a choice, pay for the extra costs and Union Pacific crews will work after dark using spotlights and will protect the current schedule of the train. Amtrak was unwilling to pay to protect the schedule. Hence you have the current plan outlined in the news article.
I think the UPRR proposal was fair, the Amtrak response to it just begs the question of why are they running the train in the first place if they cannot even afford or are unwilling to pay costs to UPRR above normal operations for seasonal parts of the year.
The Handicapped Room in each Superliner sleeper is intended for the handiappped and the elderly, and certainly can meet the needs of anyone that is far from being a “spring chicken.” And the car attendant’s Job is to meet that person’s reasonable needs, including bringing food from the diner. I never found any Amtrak bed so uncomfortable that sleep was deprived and always infinitely more comfortable than airline or bus seat.
I cannot imagene a tourist from the Northeast USA or Canada or from overseas, who wishes to see the landscape of the great southwest, with or without stopovers, being able to fulfill this wish without first-class train service.
And the elderly or handicapped along the route may use the Sunset Limited three or four times a year, and be subsidized yearly by as much as $3,000.of the taxpayers money in making these three or four trips. Maybe as much as $6,000!
But the business traveler between Providence and Philadelphia who makes twice weekly round trips probable is subsidized by as much as $30,000 a year if all costs were figured. True, his or her subsidy is necessitated by the road, street, and airport congestion that would occur if the NEC service were not available, which is not true of the Amtrak service subsidy that the resident of San Antonio who uses the Sunset received. What could happen, however, is that the San Antonio user of the Sunset could demand that if he or she doesn’t get a subsidy, then the NEC should be completely supported by the specific states served.
All the elderly I know as well as myself would rather fly for a few hours instead of spending many hours riding Amtrak. To go see my 2 children requires either a 30 hour or 48 hour Amtrak trip vs. 2 1/4 and 3 1/4 hour plane trips sitting on Southwest seats that aren’t that different from Amtrak coach. I’ve found the Southwest senior fares to be less than Amtrak’s coach fares. As for Amtrak meals, many seniors have dietary needs and Amtrak food choices are a real problem. Flying somewhere in only a few hours eliminates the meal problem.
Your argument is not supported by facts. In 2017, only there were only 57,048 boarding and alightings on Amtrak in San Antonio. That means only 28,524 people there used the “service” out of a metro population of 2,473,974. In other words, most people there could not care less about whether Amtrak serves them or folks in the NEC.
And where did you obtain the $30K figure? Did you take in to account the fact that residents in various states in the NEC pay far more in taxes into the federal government than they receive back?
My experience is the same. Flying to Eugene, Oregon to visit relatives is not the quickest of flights, requiring a change of planes and thus taking seven to eight hours and costing at least $237 hours in early February. However, it sure beats taking the train, which these days might get delayed by many hours in the mountains. Even with no delays, it takes 50-72 hours with a change of trains for a similar fare - in coach. No thanks.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau the median family income in Texas is $57,051. For most of the communities between San Antonio and El Paso that are stops for the Sunset Limited, or near stops that impaired people might use, the median family income is approximately $40,000 to $45,000 per year.
According to Amtrak’s figures, the median income of its sleeping car passengers in FY17 was $102,000; the median income of its coach passengers on the long-distance trains was $67,000.
As per these figures, most impaired people in Texas, especially those along the route of the Sunset Limited between San Antonio and El Paso, could not afford the handicapped room. So, they would have to ride in a coach.
Irrespective of the cause, most impaired people are not going to be comfortable spending long hours in an Amtrak coach, especially if they have to get on or off the train in the middle of the night.
The reason Amtrak can shrink the schedule of the Sunset Limited for six weeks or substitute buses for the Crescent is because these trains are not critical for passenger transport in the areas that they serve.
The Crescent has been doing this every winter for at least a decade. Program track work between between Atlanta and NOL single track, M-Th, during daylight. Freight trains have their schedules shifted to avoid the work. Shifting Crescent means extra crews that don’t exist and inability to flip train in NOL overnight. Very little ridership south of Atlanta in the winter in any event.
Charlie, if you question my subsidy figures, please tell me what you think they should be. And where do you obtain the notion that NE residents have a higher ratio of paying taxes to the Feds and receiving less in return than Texans?
What you say about ridership is true, but if you were to take a pole of San Anonio residents about how much per taxpayer Amtrak costs them each year, I believe most would wish to continue the subsidy, rather than lose the skelital service they get. “I want the train to be around in case I ever need or want to use it.”
And what complaints are concerning long distance trains and their subsidies could b said about municipal libraries and Nationsl Parks.
Regarding comfort, the least comfortable sleeping-car accomodations for me were single sleepercoach rooms. But I was glad to use them. Even though the mattrices in upper and lower berths in old section sleepers were better.
Wait, traveling second class “Couchette” in Europe was not as good as sleepercoaches.