Look for more ventures similar to the American Orient Express to spring up. Using ex-Amtrack Superliner cars these will cater to the luxury minded traveler, essentially a big hotel on wheels going thru a fixed journey, likely thru the more spectacular scenery areas Amtrack went thru or possibly old fallen flag routes. The prices thought would likely be much higher than most people can afford so it will again be a catering to the rich, like the AOE. Nice train but unless I win the lotto, I’ll never be able to ride it.[:(]
Vsmith,
I hear what your saying about the cost, but I guess it depends on how much you want the experience. I would save up to ride a train like the AOE. My problem is getting time off to go. That was also my problem in riding Amtrak. I could never get away from family and work responsibilities to go. Also, Amtrak does not run where I live. We lost our Amtrak train, the Floridian, back in 1979, thanks to our fine president at the time, Jimmy Carter. The last time I rode Amtrak was in 1985. I took the Silver Meteor from Jesup GA to Ft. Lauderdale FL. I had a good trip too. But, things happen, job changes, kids etc. years, then decades go by. Hence I am in the situation that I now find myself, wanting to ride but not being able to and having that corrupt Secretary of Transportation Mineta destroy the last of our LD passenger trains. Heed the words of Clem Stone," Do it
now".
George
G’day, Y’all,
Pres. Bush might want to be remembered as the second term, lame duck President who finished off the 19th century in America, but all those Republican/Democratic senators and representatives hope never to be lame ducks. Lets hope their political astuteness prevents them from taking the chance that their Democratic/Republican challengers can turn their races into a swiftboat affair (slowtrain controversy?) by blaming the loss of choo choo trains on the incumbent. Americans fondly recall the passenger train as something from their grandparents’ time and don’t want to lose it, even if they are unlikely to ride one (although they would tell a pollster that someday they will). They would tend to disapprove of a pol who voted to kill off the passenger train unless a more compelling issue steered them into that camp as the lesser of two evils.
I figured that a big number of the Senate an House would buck the president on his plan and the $1.17 billion more than the $0 Pres. Bush offered is testimony that they did. If only some sanity can be injected into the AMTRAK breakup because people who know railroad operations know that won’t work.
Jock Ellis
Cumming, GA US of A
I can’t see a big cut in existing Amtrak services although I think at least the Florida
portion of the Sunset is probably doomed, possible east of San Antonio and definately
east of New Orleans. In this situation, the Eagle could be made a three trips a week
operation and run between Chicago, Texas and Los Angeles.
Travel is quite heavy between the northeast and Florida and the two trains use different routes for a fair share of the trip. If the Meteor were to be taken off, the slower route would survive but all existing stations would continue to have service, if the Star were to be taken off there would be a gap between Raleigh and Savannah but the state of South Carolina does not seem to care about passenger train service anyway.
It makes no sense to cut the remaining trains, they all serve important areas and
indeed even some areas that presently have no other means of transportation.
As for Amtrak employees, it depends on the occupation. There is a general shortage of
locomotive engineers all over the place so most of the engineers in long distance
operations would probably continue to work somewhere in their area in freight service
although most as new employees. Some of the older engineers still have the right to
return to their original railroad if Amtrak has no work for them with their original seniority
in place.
I am not sure about the other employees.
w
I would like to see increased Amtrak funding and better service but, I find it very hard to swallow the idea that dining and sleeper service don’t cover their costs.
The GAO report on this was more convincing to me than the NARP rebuttal of their assumptions.
If Amtrak can’t show that these services actually provide a net income greater than their short term cost and they can’t find a contractor willing to take them on then at least in the east, maybe Amtrak should be reconfigured as a “daylight” “BYOF” network.
Dining car service on passenger trains has never covered its costs, and this goes back to at least the between-the-World-Wars era. However, it was always considered a necessary part of top-of-the-line trains.
As a whole, passenger trains nationwied last covered their solely related costs in 1953.
If you can show it is linked to retaining coach passengers, and the net with it is greater than the net without it, then it should stay.
GAO just assumes everyone stays when the food goes away. NARP just offers up a theory that the two are linked with no supporting evidence. What’s needed is some real market research - the kind of thing Amtrak should be fully engaged in - but are they?
Further evidence to support that is the fact that many diners did not travel end to end on trains but were pulled at an intermediate point and put on a train going in the opposite direction. This was an attempt at getting more utilization and revenue out of the car. Dining cars are just like any resturant, the only time they’re making money is when folks are sitting in them and buying food. Otherwise the staff is being paid to watch empty tables.
That said, I think the idea of ending dining service on trains is about as attractive as is the idea of stopping food service on long distance airline travel. It is a amenity more or less needed on long distance travel.
Dale
People have to be fed and the quality of food remains as a memory of the trip. I think Gunn was doing a good job and the increasing ridership indicated as much. I think it is Mineta that should be fired. I think he should have done more in both Gulf Hurricanes and shown leadership, which he did not do. And again, DOT subisdy figures do not include LAND USE.
What’s needed is to estimate the impact of having it vs. not having it. You’re just repeating the NARP line…
This is info Amtrak should know cold. I’ll be they don’t .
That said, there is NOTHING I like better than eating in the diner on a train. Last LD train I rode (Crescent), I was one of only a few coach passengers that opted for dinner in the diner. Most either snacked, brought with, or ate before boarding, as this train has serveral personalities. It’s the “evening train to Charlottesville”, the ovenight to Charlotte and Atlanta, and the Atlanta to NO day train. Very few passenger ride thru ATL.
Interesting, have not read the NARP’s viewpoint.
The fact that most folks didn’t u
http://www.narprail.org/cms/index.php/resources/more/ig_sleepers/
See #11 and others. No facts in the rebuttal, just “plausibilities”
I recall that on the PBS show I saw on the Daylights, the diner didn’t make money, but drink sales in the bar cars generated more profit than any other aspect of the train. I believe they also said that when SP eliminated the diners, alcohol sales went down pretty significanly. Would Amtrak be making the same mistake?
Operating a whole diner to serve 3 meals a day is quite a different thing then selling food and drink on the train. I think a lounge/cafe car should prove profitable - even if sales receipts didn’t exceed the total cost of operation. Still, somebody, somewhere at Amtrak ought to be able to gauge the impact of various types of food service on ridership and revenue. It would be basic market research. Where are they? Why hasn’t someone spoken up?
In stead of Gunn just saying “no” and NARP throwing around plausibilities, somewhere in Amtrak’s mktg dept real info should exist. Amtrak should be able to say something like,
“The availablity of food from a cafe car to coach passengers travelling more than 100 miles increases ridership 10% and revenues from those passenger by 15%. The added cost to provide cafe cars food service is only 75% of the net increase in revenue. So, the existence of cafe car service is justified.”
But nobody has said this, so the implication is that Amtrak is just “protecting” a “loser”.
Don – I agree that it would be nice – very nice – for Amtrak to be able to provide the hard figures that you reference. However… getting such numbers requires that an analysis be done on two otherwise closely comparable groups, one which (in this instance) is offered care car service, and one, otherwise identical, which is not. And the groups need to be large enough to be statistically comparable. Unfortunately, I cannot see any way in which Amtrak (or anyone) could conduct such a study. One can do such things, in the case of transportation, in large markets served by competitive carriers; for instance, one could compare the passenger load of two airlines operating at about the same time of day between the same two points, and study the effect of variables such as food service (always provided you controlled for other variables – that is, you change only one variable at a time).
I do know that Amtrak has conducted surveys of riders from time to time (I’ve participated) on various topics, including food service, and it may be that they are basing their conclusions on the results of these surveys. Shaky, perhaps, although no worse than the marketing surveys which any large firm uses – and in a situation of this sort, the best that can be had.
They don’t need to survey riders as much as the general public in their service areas. This would be basic market research. Automakers, for one, do this sort of thing all the time. How else would they know what new models to build and to gauge future production of them? Marketing is more than just pricing.
Also, you CAN do multi-variable studies and figure out the impact of each variable using statisitcal methods.