78 replies to this topic

[WICT106]

Some good ideas here, but we have to figure out how to finance the whole thing.

Step 1 - Unions

Bust the unions. I don't mind compensating employees well, but the work rules have to change, big time. Amtrak needs more flexibility in how to use the available employees.


Step 2 - Discounts

If a train isn't at 90% capacity, marketing and sales have failed. For coach, a full seat costs next to nothing, since the seat is there anyway. The coach attendant is there anyway. The bathrooms needed to be cleaned anyway. Plus, the more people on board, the more food they may buy.

Give steep discounts on light trains or during slow times of the year.


Step 3 - Frequency

Increase LD train frequency to at least 4 trains a day, spaced about 6 hours apart. That way every station will have a few sane boarding times. (e.g. Spokane won't only have 1 AM) And having three daytime arrivals/departures sure gives people a reason to choose Amtrak. (e.g. in Milwaukee on the EB, mid-afternoon is a terrible time for me. I'd either want to leave in the evening or leave right away in the morning.) This setup will also make short stops at various cities more appealing. I would not want to stay in Havre MT for 24 hours, but I'd definitely consider stopping 6 hours for a meal and to see their downtown shops. It also opens the option for people to just go coach during the day, get off in the evening and stay at a hotel, then re-board the next morning for more scenery. And vice-versa, some people may opt to sleep on the train and then spend the next day "doing something" in a different city.

As a part of this, more equipment would need to be purchased. Make it so.

Having more frequent trains would make each crew base more efficient. It would make missed connections easier to fix. (essentially no more bussing or hotel stays, with the next train leaving within 6 hours) It would increase the customer base because of flexibility and availability.


Step 4 - Track

Create a program for improving the tracks. 1000-2000 miles a year. They need to be doubled-tracked, so each direction can flow unimpeded. Also upgrade the tracks to allow 110 mph service. Start with the easy areas (the plains!) or with areas where the impact will be great. This program will make the trains more reliable and the transit times faster. Both will in turn drive up customer satisfaction and patronage.

Since this will help the freight trains too, strike a deal with the RR companies. Either do a cost-share for the upgraded tracks, or reduce the fee per car-mile for a set number of years, or make better agreements for giving passenger trains priority.


Step 5 - Add routes

Bring back some of the old routes - Desert Wind, Pioneer, Floridian, Sunset Ltd, KC to Pittsburg.
Oklahoma City to KC to Des Moines to MSP.
Bridge some small gaps - Bakersfield to Victorville.
Slight re-routes - Must go to downtown Phoenix.
Add spurs - Green Bay to MKE, CHI to Dubuque, MKE to Madison (I'm sure there are plenty like this throughout the nation)
Connect airports - Rail can and should be a direct compeitor on time and price with regional jets. Amtrak must stop at all major airports or have fast shuttles to them. Enter into agreements with airlines to have "codeshares" or combined tickets.

This will increase the reach of Amtrak to provide a bigger customer base and improve travel options for existing customers.


Step 6 - Amenities

Full service diners. Open from 6 AM to 10 PM, with reservations only when demand is high.

Lounge cafe is now a vending machine area. That will provide 24 hour service and cut out a worker.

Walk-up grill so you can get burgers, pizza, chicken strips, fries, etc. I'm not sure where this could go. Perhaps it would be half of a diner, or perhaps it would be in lower level of the second lounge. Or maybe it'll be a new car type with a full bar. (Lounge 1: no staff, vending machines down below. Lounge 2: grill on one end, full bar on the other, with seating downstairs and in the middle)

Section sleeper - not private, no meals, no perks. Pay-per-use shower.

Slumbercoach - private, no meals, no perks. Pay-per-use shower.

Other ideas for cheap ways to sleep horizontally?

Wi-fi on board. Cell coverage too.

Small "conference" rooms that can be rented by the hour. For business travellers who need a little privacy or quiet to make some phone calls. Each room could hold two people, or two rooms open for four people. This could be a lower level of a lounge or section sleeper.

Public computers. A few computers, that can be rented for a period of time. Internet access.

Can track individual trains on Amtrak.com. Displays area map, current speed, special information, arrival times. Each lounge or business center has a screen that shows this for the train.

(Sample consist: Engines, baggage, transition, sleeper, sleeper, diner, bar/grill, lounge, section sleeper w/ business center, slumbercoach, coach, coach, coach)


Step 7 - Planning for Disaster

Things like the Oregon landslide are not uncommon. Have a plan ready on the shelf for each section of track, in case it is not useable. Either alternate tracks to use or ways to bus people.

[GG-1]

Step 1 - Unions

Bust the unions. I don't mind compensating employees well, but the work rules have to change, big time. Amtrak needs more flexibility in how to use the available employees.

Aloha

Before deciding to "Bust the Unions" how about defining the job of unions, and exploring the reasons they exist. With very few exceptions, Companies with Good Labor/Management do not have unions, Why? Companies with Difficult union relations probably result from management/labor relations with little honesty or respect.

You mentioned "work rule changes", What would you like to see changed, would you consider a similar change in your work rule?

Before deciding on success the Management/Union process, one must understand the goals and needs of both sides of an issue.

[George Harris]

1. Can you show me significant proof that on-time performance greatly affects ridership on current amtrak trains? The City of New Orleans OTP is way above 70% I'm sure, so why is it not the most heavily used ld amtrak train? While of course the closer to on-time trains run the better, I don't think that they have to run at a certain percentage to be used by most people.

2. Amtrak used to add cars in Atlanta as well (as recently as 8 years ago for sure). Why did they stop? Probably because a: they found out they could use the extra space after all, or b: they found it was no more costly, and saved time to run the car empty for half the trip. I don't think some amtrak official said "Hey, let's stop saving money here and spend more!"

1. somewhat hard to do. However, the Empire Builder, which has consistently over its lifetime maintained relatively good on time performance has ridership far out of proportion to the population of the area it serves. As to the City of New Orleans, the good OTP is a relatively recent development. For about the first 15 plus years of Amtrak it had miserable OTP, loss of sleepers for a while, multiple schedule shifts, and finally a route shift between Memphis and Jackson, Mississippi from a line with several stops that had fairly high passenger loadings for their size to an area that had lost passenger service nearly 20 years before Amtrak start up. And, for a goodly bit of this time all of it on a railroad notorious for rough track. By the time something approaching reliable timekeeping returned, the schedule was slowed by a few hours, and those people interested in something approaching on time performance had gone elsewhere and not looked back.

2. Not sure the fact that Amtrak chose to do something meant it made good economic sense. It is entirely likely that they looked at the switching cost in a vacuum without considering wear and tear and fuel consumption due to hauling the cars empty for 450 miles a day. That is not even mentioning the failure to have the seats available where there could be bodies to fill them. This last is called lost opportunity cost, is hard to quantify, but can sink your boat as a business if you don't try to quantify it.

[nr272]

The Slumbercoach had a staggered level room setup. This allowed it to fit more rooms into place. Some beds were up high and some lower. They basically made the floor of the upper rooms to the left and right the ceiling of the one between them, but with a space to stand in.

Interesting. Would the Viewliner be the modern day equivalent to this car?

[wayman]

The Slumbercoach had a staggered level room setup. This allowed it to fit more rooms into place. Some beds were up high and some lower. They basically made the floor of the upper rooms to the left and right the ceiling of the one between them, but with a space to stand in.

Interesting. Would the Viewliner be the modern day equivalent to this car?

No, not at all. The Viewliner roomette accommodates two people and occupies the full height of the car.

Each Slumbercoach compartment accommodated one person. It didn't go floor-to-ceiling of the car: some were "low" (accessed from hallway level) and some were "high" (accessed by climbing a few stairs, I think). And the high compartments weren't directly over the low compartments: they were offset (staggered) and overlapping. So walking down the corridor, you'd see doors for low, hi, low, hi, etc. The exterior of the car shows this, with the zig-zag pattern of windows. I gather it was hard to take interior pictures of the Slumbercoaches which gave a good feel for the overall layout, because the space was so tight?... I've seen a few photos from within a compartment, but I don't recall seeing one of the corridor, or looking into compartments from the corridor, which I think would help make the layout clearer.

[Green Maned Lion]

The only problem is that while some of us RailFan types would definitely be fine with them, I don't know if someone would want the equivalent of an airlines ideas on coach seats applied to a private room accommodation. I mean these things were miniaturized to the absolute minimum on size they could take up.

[nr272]

The Slumbercoach had a staggered level room setup. This allowed it to fit more rooms into place. Some beds were up high and some lower. They basically made the floor of the upper rooms to the left and right the ceiling of the one between them, but with a space to stand in.

Interesting. Would the Viewliner be the modern day equivalent to this car?

No, not at all. The Viewliner roomette accommodates two people and occupies the full height of the car.

Each Slumbercoach compartment accommodated one person. It didn't go floor-to-ceiling of the car: some were "low" (accessed from hallway level) and some were "high" (accessed by climbing a few stairs, I think). And the high compartments weren't directly over the low compartments: they were offset (staggered) and overlapping. So walking down the corridor, you'd see doors for low, hi, low, hi, etc. The exterior of the car shows this, with the zig-zag pattern of windows. I gather it was hard to take interior pictures of the Slumbercoaches which gave a good feel for the overall layout, because the space was so tight?... I've seen a few photos from within a compartment, but I don't recall seeing one of the corridor, or looking into compartments from the corridor, which I think would help make the layout clearer.

Ok, thanks for the info. It's too bad these cars aren't still around, because I'd love to ride in one. After sleeping in a coach seat for 3 nights, I'm not going to be too picky about the room size and it's amentities!

[Green Maned Lion]

The Windy City Flyer concept was actually a train I was thinking of creating and operating myself as a private venture. It took about 15 minutes researching the cost of running a train like that to nix the idea of doing it, as I could never capitalize such a project, and I'd have a hard time making a profit for it.

The route, however, eliminates a lot of your arguments. The route would run 945 miles. It could maintain a speed of close to 100 mph for the first 195 miles to Harrisburg, which it would accomplish in two hours. For the remaining 750 miles, it can run a speed of 70 mph on average. If doing so, it could make the trip in about 11 hours. Now, assuming we add another hour in there for a crew/engine change at Harrisburg as well as delays, the train could reach Chicago in 14 hours.

If the train leaves New York Penn at 6:00 (giving the average business man the chance to leave work and spend an hour getting to the station) it would arrive in Chicago the next morning at 8AM, giving the average business man an hour to get to a business meeting. The businessman enjoys a meal, a night cap, and goes to bed. He wakes up the next morning at 6:30, eats breakfast, and departs the train.

To one perspective, he's used up 14 hours of his life as opposed to two and a half. But lets modify that, because its inaccurate. First of all, that businessman would have to take 30 to 60 minutes to get to one of the New York airports, from his office. He needs to arrive there perhaps 2 hours before the flight leaves.
With the stricter baggage policy of airlines, it is more likely he will need to check baggage. If he does so, he can expect to wait another hour getting his bag. Now he needs to spend another 30-60 minutes getting from the airport to the meeting. So in reality, the flight takes between five and a half and seven and a half hours out of the man's life.

Second, the time taken out of his life on that plane, assuming he leaves the morning of the meeting, is from the hours of 4 in the morning (who wants to get up that early? O_O) and 8:30, assuming best times. If he leaves the night before, the hours taken out of his life are between 5:00 and 9:30 at best, 5:00 and 11:30 at worst. He then gets to spend money on a hotel room in Chicago, sleeps the night there, and is back where we started. He is not going to do anything useful between 9:30 and going to bed, he is not going to do anything useful between the time he wakes up and the meeting.

After the meeting, he can take the plane again. It will take him at least an hour to get from downtown Chicago to O'Hare in traffic. He can then fly home on an 8:30 flight, arriving in New York at about 11:00. He then has to once again get his bags, and travel home. He will arrive home at best at 1:00 in the morning and fall straight asleep. He most likely won't be up before 9:00. Alternatively, he decides not to get home at that ungodly hour, and sleeps over again. He can fly out really early to get home by 9:00, again, but it means he will need get up at 4:00 AM once again. A more reasonable time gets him home around noon.

Alternatively, he can take the Windy City Flyer. He once again leaves his office at 5:00. He boards the train at 6:00, checks into his room, and heads to the dining car. He eats a meal, has a night cap, and goes to bed. He wakes up again at 6:30 and eats breakfast, disembarking at 8:00. He gets to the meeting, and goes about his business. He leaves again at 5:00, boards the 6:00 train, and leaves. Eats dinner, has his night cap, sleeps, eats breakfast, gets off the train, and is home around 9:00.

He can do it in less time on a plane, sure. It means he has to get up at 4:00 in the morning, or earlier, and it means he has to get home at 1:00 in the morning. It is inconvenient, uncomfortable, and a lot of people wouldn't do it. He can do it in a similar time on a plane, with less of the getting up at 4 in the morning. To do so with comfort and convenience of not getting up at ridiculous hours, nor getting home at them, it will take him about 3 hours more, and he is still arriving in Chicago late at night.

In sum, the train is not as time inefficient as it at first seems.

[jphjaxfl]

Each Slumbercoach compartment accommodated one person. It didn't go floor-to-ceiling of the car: some were "low" (accessed from hallway level) and some were "high" (accessed by climbing a few stairs, I think). And the high compartments weren't directly over the low compartments: they were offset (staggered) and overlapping. So walking down the corridor, you'd see doors for low, hi, low, hi, etc. The exterior of the car shows this, with the zig-zag pattern of windows. I gather it was hard to take interior pictures of the Slumbercoaches which gave a good feel for the overall layout, because the space was so tight?... I've seen a few photos from within a compartment, but I don't recall seeing one of the corridor, or looking into compartments from the corridor, which I think would help make the layout clearer.]

Most of the Slumbercoaches had 24 Single rooms and 8 double room. They had a capacity of 40 almost twice the normal standard sleeping car like a 10/6 which had a capacity of 22. All the Slumbercoaches there built as Slumbercoaches were built by Budd. The NYC had some Slumbercoaches that had 16 Single Rooms and 10 Double rooms which were converted from 22 roomette Sleeping Cars. Seaboard Coast Line's Slumbercoaches were 16 Duplex roomettes and 4 Double Rooms which were converted from B&O Sleeping cars with the same layout.

[TVRM610]

I think there is a question that needs to be addressed here, as it sounds like everyone is just talking about bringing back the past.

For rail to be viable, the average person has to accept that the time spent in transit is reasonable. For example, courtesy of air travel, passengers accept that Baltimore to Miami is 2.5 hours. That same trip on Amtrak is 24+ hours, over a day. The majority of the money spent on transportation comes from business. When comparing the two, times and costs, air is going to win in the business travelers mind.

Cross country trips on air are 4-5 hours, and 3 1/2 days on rail. To the average person today, that is simply too slow.

In order for Amtrak to succeed, 79 mph is not going to cut it. Yes, I know the capital costs of going faster are phenomenal, but if no one wants to use it, because it is too slow, you get what we have today.


Maybe with the coming energy crunch, people will change, and begin to accept a slower paced lifestyle... but I'm not seeing any signs of it yet.

I don't think the average person is going to want to travel from Chicago to Seattle by train vs. air in the nearby future. Sure some people like to do it for the relaxation, and experience, and we all like to do it because we enjoy amtrak. But the average person will fly every time.

Which is why in my proposal, Amtrak should continue creating corridors linking major cities. As an example Atlanta GA - Charlotte NC. Atlanta to Charlotte takes 4 hours to drive by car, currently the crescent takes 4.5 hours to make that same journey. If the track was in such a condition as to run an average speed of 90 mph (110 max speed) then you could make the entire journey in 3 hours or so. (Realistically in this country, your never gonna get better than 3.5 hours probably though).

Now, not only is that saving time vs. driving, but flying too! By the time you get to the airport 2 hours early, and ride your 1 hour flight, you have spent 3 hours on your travel. (Not including waiting for your luggage after the flight, riding trams to your gate/car etc. etc.)

Many more corridors like the NEC could be quite sucessful in my opinion. As these corridors expanded, long distance service could also gain, as people get used to taking the train, and realize the comfort.

In this scenario, the Carolinian and the Atlanta-Charlotte Corridor could be combined and take the place all together of the crescent. (One through train running NYP-ATL), then one daily train could run from Atlanta to New Orleans with Atlanta being a change point, or a thru coach.

I'm sure many more examples like this could be found in the amtrak system.

[Green Maned Lion]

If we create these corridors, sleeper service will be history. No way.

[TVRM610]

If we create these corridors, sleeper service will be history. No way.

Haha... I know where your coming from!

The good news is amtrak won't listen to me anyways! The sleepers are safe!

I'm not saying eliminate all sleepers. Perhaps under this theory the Crescent would still run as the crescent, but in more high speed territory, so in less time (but still overnight).

In my mind, the corridors enhance the long distance trains, not completely replace them.

[Galls]

If we create these corridors, sleeper service will be history. No way.

That is a rather selfish outlook on amtrak if you consider to be a public service.

I say that good heartedly by the way.

[Green Maned Lion]

Sleeper service trains are essential to their making sense over airplanes. The concept of sleeping while moving is what allows a train to work better than faster planes.

[Galls]

Sleeper service trains are essential to their making sense over airplanes. The concept of sleeping while moving is what allows a train to work better than faster planes.

This is a sound theory, and on overnight trips, not multi night trips but clearly there is a market. But if amtrak is a public service, then does it have a right to compete with private industry in what I personally consider a luxury market?

Edited by Galls, 11 February 2008 - 06:10 PM.

[George Harris]

Sleeper service trains are essential to their making sense over airplanes. The concept of sleeping while moving is what allows a train to work better than faster planes.

This is a sound theory, and on overnight trips, not multi night trips but clearly there is a market. But if amtrak is a public service, then does it have a right to compete with private industry in what I personally consider a luxury market?

This question was actually answered about 80 years ago with the shoe on the other foot with the beginning of the huge public expenditure for airports, air mail subsidies and other goodies to encourage the airline industry. It has been non-stop ever since. Now that we are talking about essentially nickel and dime assistance for railroad passenger service the descendants of same people that benefited from the air subsidies are howling. Sorry, no sympathy.

[Galls]

Sleeper service trains are essential to their making sense over airplanes. The concept of sleeping while moving is what allows a train to work better than faster planes.

This is a sound theory, and on overnight trips, not multi night trips but clearly there is a market. But if amtrak is a public service, then does it have a right to compete with private industry in what I personally consider a luxury market?

This question was actually answered about 80 years ago with the shoe on the other foot with the beginning of the huge public expenditure for airports, air mail subsidies and other goodies to encourage the airline industry. It has been non-stop ever since. Now that we are talking about essentially nickel and dime assistance for railroad passenger service the descendants of same people that benefited from the air subsidies are howling. Sorry, no sympathy.

Well that seems to be a different argument about nationalized rail infrastructure. While amtrak running a luxury service, in its current funding state and a de facto monopoly, is the conflict I was hinting at.

Edited by Galls, 11 February 2008 - 07:36 PM.

[AlanB]

Sleeper service trains are essential to their making sense over airplanes. The concept of sleeping while moving is what allows a train to work better than faster planes.

This is a sound theory, and on overnight trips, not multi night trips but clearly there is a market. But if amtrak is a public service, then does it have a right to compete with private industry in what I personally consider a luxury market?

This question was actually answered about 80 years ago with the shoe on the other foot with the beginning of the huge public expenditure for airports, air mail subsidies and other goodies to encourage the airline industry. It has been non-stop ever since. Now that we are talking about essentially nickel and dime assistance for railroad passenger service the descendants of same people that benefited from the air subsidies are howling. Sorry, no sympathy.

Well that seems to be a different argument about nationalized rail infrastructure. While amtrak running a luxury service, in its current funding state and a de facto monopoly, is the conflict I was hinting at.

Well that luxury service is not only paying for itself, it's actually helping to reduce the subsidies needed for coach service.

[Green Maned Lion]

Amtrak has not stopped people from competing with it if they felt a desire to do so.