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Pullman Rail Journeys trips over Amtrak in doubt in 2016
So why isn’t Pullman Rail Journeys going out on their own? After all the new transportation bill allowed for just this type of operation over the same routes that Amtrak uses. If Amtrak doesn’t get the message after another operator starts using it’s own equipment and takes revenue away from Amtrak then it is time to say good bye Amtrak
Only Amtrak has the “right” to run on other’s tracks, after paying certain fixed costs. Unless they run under Amtrak’s banner, they have to negotiate their own rate and pay from the ballast up. i.e. a lot more than Amtrak would for the same train.
Leave it to Amtrak to ruin an appealing and popular passenger concept.
With the locomotive issues Amtrak is having, and winter weather always a possibility, I would think Amtrak does not want the possibility or has the availability for a 2nd engine on the City of New Orleans. Could be wrong but that is what this sounds like.
I have always been an AMTRAK supporter. However, If lack of a second motivator for a particular train becomes a pivotal issue, perhaps it is time for a national conversation on the relevance of AMTRAK in 2016.
I would, rather, suspect a revenue problem at Pullman Rail, especially given its shrunken consist.
I’ll defer to Fred Frailey on this. I’m sure that he will have a column soon and we’ll find the real cause. But, I suspect that it is Amtrak wanting to stifle the competition and charging very high rates for hauling these cars. Pullman Rail Journies may be having revenue problems so they can’t afford the rates that Amtrak is charging and Amtrak knows it. Look what they did to the Hoosier State. I hope someone puts a stop to this extortion soon. The goal here should be to get rid of Amtrak not PRJ.
I think that Amtrak is probably doing what any other entity would do in this situation - 1. play by the rules, 2. preserve the organization.
The problem is that the rules Amtrak has to play by have nothing to do with providing high quality transportation alternatives to taxpayers, and everything to do with politics. Almost every time Amtrak is mentioned in a newswire story we get one of these themes: “Why don’t they just run Amtrak like a real business, let the market handle it!” and “Why is Amtrak trying to stifle competition!”.
It might seem curious that those questions tend to come from the same group of people until you realize that for them it’s not about improving Amtrak, it’s about getting rid of it.
Sadly this appears to be a classic case of Amtrak’s inability to partner effectively and fear of taking a chance. If, as TRAINS suggests, the Pullman Rail service was typically sold-out with two cars, but couldn’t grow without punitive charges from Amtrak for a second engine, then the initial reaction would be for both sides to sit down and discuss what might be possible. Amtrak has reasons here to want to add that second unit for their own benefit as well, since the train is typically sold-out in the carrier’s own sleepers more often than not.
Amtrak all too typically is afraid to add another car on account of Amtrak’s institutionalized pessimismistic view that “maybe it wouldn’t fill–so better to be cautious and do nothing”. Allowing for this nearly eternal Amtrak behavior, it is doubly sad that Amtrak has clearly chosen not to come to a mutually beneficial deal with Iowa Pacific/Pullman Rail.
Amtrak literally did not even keep a wait list for sleepers for the first 25 years of the operation of its Arrow Res System–because if you kept a waitlist you had to staff the work to call the names on it–and what if it didn’t work out, then you couldn’t justify the staff–oh dear–oh dear–better just to let travel agents/ prospective passengers call in at 200AM every day, when the system auto cancels unticketed reservations. I know this from my direct experience as a rail travel specialist travel agent for over 30 years.
Only in the last decade has Amtrak finally (and far too selectively) taken sleeper wait list requests. By contrast VIA Rail Canada always tracked this and typically adds a car whenever the waitlist reaches 60% of a car’s space. I know–Amtrak cries an eternal shortage of cars–especially sleepers. With respect to Viewliners in the east this is credible, but on Superliner trains and especially out of high summer, this is a false excuse. The company prefers to park cars than to risk filling a request from Chicago to Whitefish
As the project developer in the mid-1980s for the “New Century Limited” proposed on a hotel room proforma basis to run as a private, first class train overnight, between Chicago-New York, I learned enough to understand what happened going forward to the concepts of the American European Express (AEE), American Orient Express (AOE), Grand Luxe, and now, Pullman Rail Journeys.
- Given the slower, inconvenient departure or arrival times of Amtrak long distance routes, a private train has to operate as its own section. This is what helped to kill AEE when it elected to inaugurate service to Washington as part of the “Capitol,” and I predicted on the inaugural run (11/89) out of WAS that it would never attract business travel with such schedules. The same unmanageable schedule torpedoed Pullman, as how can you sell a high priced product, especially over a weekend, when arrival in New Orleans is not until after 330pm Saturday; yet, departure next day is right after 1pm? (I traveled this train in May, 2013, and was quite pleased with every aspect of the service, other than CN’s deteriorated roadbed, especially between Memphis-New Orleans).
- In a robust economy, more people have the extra income to splurge on a private train, even to become regular riders. When I traveled the AOE in summer of 2005, the firm operated not only our western national parks train, but also, a similar train in Canada. However, when the economy recedes, or is persistently flat, so does that disposal income, or jobs themselves. (remember Grand Luxe?) How many attempts have their been to operate a dedicated train to The Greenbrier between Chicago-Washington-New York?
- Cash flow to ensure working capital is critical, given the high costs incurred in providing the service, paying Amtrak, etc. This issue eventually derailed all of the above private train concepts. As Pullman learned, it’s a Sword of Damocles to offer sufficient capacity to cover overhead; yet, how that triggers the cost of additi
The City of New Orleans is a pretty short consist. These “new state of the art” locomotives cant handle a 10 or 11 car train?!
Mr Singer’s comment is thoughtful and very interesting. As a long-time seller of the American European/Orient/Grand Luxe Express trains I can offer a slightly different perspective.
I question if there is/was ever a real regular market in the USA for a super-deluxe land-cruise train running entirely on its own dedicated, fast schedule, on the model of something like the 20th Century Limited, in the Amtrak era. We had a much easier time selling the AOE/GLE on its longer trips, when being on the train itself was as much the object of the journey as getting somewhere, than we did when those trains tried to mimic the great limited of the 1950s.
So I admit my support for the IP/Pullman Rail concept seems odd. But key is that they have not tried to run completely apart from service that Amtrak was going to run anyway as part of its network mandate. The tragedy is that Amtrak seems no more ready to partner in a mutually constructive now way than it was with the Grand Luxe Express at the very end, when it too tried to operate a sanely priced service on the back of the CZ, SW CHIEF and the SILVER STAR.
Part of the problem with the earlier land-cruise train model was (unavoidably high) pricing. A dedicated land-cruise train is forced to charge high rates to cover its fixed costs. My sources in AOE/GLE management claimed they needed 85 passengers on each week’s agenda just to break even–not the easiest task to meet year round if your typical per day, per person fare exceeded $800 per day and if passengers typically had to buy 5-7 days service at minimum. And when these trains went to operating as rolling land-cruises they also had to price in off train bus charters, park fees, some off-train meals and admissions.
For better or worse Iowa Pacific/Pullman Rail’s operation on the CITY OF NEWS ORLEANS escapes some of these traps. They no longer go down on Friday and back the next day. As noted above the Thursday south–Sunday north pattern allows for a decent weekend s
Mediocrity, thy father is Amtrak and thy mother is government.
Clearly partnering with Amtrak is a difficult task. Amtrak is a paternal organization that really does not want to see any domestic attempts at operating passenger services on a regular basis. Charters are even becoming a challenge. For all the politicians that want to see privatization of passenger rail in the US, it is never going to happen unless those same people decide to reform Amtrak through legislation. As it stands, outside competition at any level is a determent to Amtrak from their perspective. Look what Amtrak has done to Pullman Journeys in the operation of the Hoosier State, not that the PJ should have been better prepared, but I think operational experiment will scare off any additional attempts to privately operate any Amtrak routes.
I’m sure we all don’t know the whole story but adding the second locomotive does bump up the costs significantly for IPH. If the City of New Orleans would always run with two locomotives then there really should not be an issue. There was a time when it operated with two locomotives and two sleepers. The extra locomotive charge is what private car owners have to worry about when running charters as that cost does really skew pricing. I agree with Carl Fowler that maybe IPH selling intermediate stations did not set well with Amtrak…who knows. You would think a partnership in some fashion would benefit Amtrak and maybe they can iron out a reasonable agreement yet. Good concept and there are people out there that will ride. Amtrak is adverse to risk but really that is a product of the environment they are forced to operate within.
I was on the last run, it was a perfect operation for anyone wanting to relive the Pre- Amtrak rail travel experience. The Food , the cars,and above all service were just the way I remembered them.
They will be missed. I hope they return soon and while I wait the :Hoosier State" will fill the void.
My best to Ed Ellis and his crew.
I realize Amtrak has equipment limitations, but I hope they are looking hard at the problem. To truly be successful, they need to expand services. If there is demand for bedroom space, at some point it makes sense to add cars even if it requires adding power. A business that is content with its current level of business and fails to seek new business is a business in decline. They need to find ways to take advantage of opportunities.
Ken Marx, I agree. It could be management or it is just a component of not having enough equipment. Clearly, shortage of cars and locomotives has been issue for years. I have suggested with a commitment to building additional single level Viewliner equipment (of course additional coaches are needed) that the City of New Orleans and Capitol Limited be switched to single level thereby pushing more Superliners out west. Clearly it is tough to grow the business if the equipment is not there to haul more people.