Silver Star Sleepers, January-March

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Westernfalls

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Jun 23, 2011
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Amtrak has blocked out all sleeper space on the Silver Star, 91 & 92, between January 12th and March 26th. This is high season, I need to make plans. Anybody know their game?
 
What city pairs? What direction?

I just looked at Feb 20th, WAS to MIA and no rooms are available for 91 (Silver Star)
 
Westernfalls said:
Amtrak has blocked out all sleeper space on the Silver Star, 91 & 92, between January 12th and March 26th. This is high season, I need to make plans. Anybody know their game?
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There is probably a glitch in their reservation system or data. See if it clears up or call the reservation desk.
 
afigg said:
There is probably a glitch in their reservation system or data. See if it clears up or call the reservation desk.
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I did that first before throwing the question out to the crowd.

The word from the "Rate Desk" was that "they" have the space blocked out for..... well, I guess "they" aren't telling, not yet anyway.
 
I currently have reservations on 92 and 91 from ORL-WAS roundtrip in January. I just checked those dates and they are showing sold out sleepers. I hope that I can keep my reservations. Edit: I just phoned Amtrak to re-confirm my reservations (which were made several months ago). I was told that my reservations are still valid. I hope that does not change.

Dave, I think the safety patrol takes trains 98 and 97. I checked 98 for January 15th (from ORL-WAS) and it shows the entire train sold out, so that may be the safety patrol train.
 
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Plus the safety patrol train wouldn't be 2 months, Jan - Mar, as the OP states.
 
Ugh. I hope this safety patrol thing pays Amtrak a hell of a lot, because it's a gratuitous interference with customers' expectations.
 
I'm booked in a Roomette from WAS to WTH on #91 on Jan 19 and from NYP to WTH on #91 on Feb 11.

I have not heard anything from Amtrak that my reservations have changed. I will be very unhappy if

Amtrak has changed.
 
When I was in the school safety patrol parade, it was in D.C. In May (of 1961).

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum
 
Orie said:
What's the safety patrol?
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There's a group that buys out one of the Silver Service trains for a round-trip. The train stretches to like 15 cars (the sleepers for the chaperones, the coaches for the several-hundred kids) and basically becomes an exclusive train running non-stop for them on a customized schedule for the day. I believe that Amtrak probably nets a six-figure sum in exchange.
 
neroden said:
Anderson said:
I believe that Amtrak probably nets a six-figure sum in exchange.
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$100,000 really wouldn't compensate for the disruption to other passengers. :) Hopefully the six-figure sum is more like $999,999. :)
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Well, some simple math and a check of Amtrak.com offers $135 as the low-bucket price for a ticket WPB-WAS. Assuming 600 round-trip tickets and you have a low-ball revenue for the whole thing of $162,000. If you go with high bucket, it's $301/ticket and $361,200 for the run. I'm inclined to err towards $250-300k, especially once sleepers are included.

The biggest issue I have with this is that Amtrak could probably run a "sequestered" coach and sleeper for pre-booked passengers on the train (and others who grab space on it) that's on the "non-kid" side of the diner and just make sure an employee is on staff at all times to keep folks from going out the wrong end of things. That alone would probably be paid for by making sure those passengers could still travel on that day (since quite frankly, cancelling that train has a tendency to peeve folks, and the Meteor is the only train from FL on a given day capable of making connections with the Cap or the LSL).
 
We had our trip on 98 cancelled two years ago because of a conflict with the Safety Patrol train. We were not notified until December for a reservation that had been made in July and that made for a messy situation trying to book another set of dates to get from HOL to WAS. I think Amtrak is trying to clear out the previous reservations a little earlier this year but not sure why they just do not block a particular date of travel for the SP and not book the train that date throughout the year.

We were just fortunate we could change our reservations to another date, but it meant hotels and car rentals also had to be changed. Amtrak's response: Sorry for the inconvenience. :(
 
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So, is the safety patrol train run during the winter or in May? I would bet it's in May, a much better time to travel to D.C. and about the time of year for a reward for the work the safety patrol kids do during the school year. This still doesn't answer why sleeper space would be blanked out for three months. Something else is going on, perhaps a big computer error? Awaiting the new Viewliner II sleepers?
 
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A search for the special safety patrol train on this forum shows that is typically runs in late January and takes over the Meteor and not the Star. It is also 1 trip north and 1 trip back to WPB.

What ever is going on with the lockout of room reservations on the Star for a two month period, it is NOT the safety patrol special train. Since the reservation system shows coach seats for sale, either the Star will be dropping its sleeper cars for 2 months or there is an error in the reservation system data.
 
Anderson said:
The biggest issue I have with this is that Amtrak could probably run a "sequestered" coach and sleeper for pre-booked passengers on the train (and others who grab space on it) that's on the "non-kid" side of the diner and just make sure an employee is on staff at all times to keep folks from going out the wrong end of things. That alone would probably be paid for by making sure those passengers could still travel on that day (since quite frankly, cancelling that train has a tendency to peeve folks, and the Meteor is the only train from FL on a given day capable of making connections with the Cap or the LSL).
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Yeah. That would be quite acceptable, and would accomodate people with tight schedules. If the buckets were set to be high as soon as the Safety Patrol train was scheduled, it probably would only attract those on tight schedules as the price-sensitive would go to other days.

I think the worry may be more about the kids getting *off* the train at intermediate stops. Or maybe it has to do with the customized schedule. Either way, it's not really a good thing to do if Amtrak intends to be an actual intercity operator.

Looking at the other thread:

http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/30607-extra-car-on-the-cardinal/?p=208724

Seriously, the safety patrol train is sex-segregated? What century are we living in?

Anyway, apparently Amtrak used to run it as an independent train. Whether or not Amtrak does that, it doesn't make sense from a passenger service standpoint to shut down the regular train service entirely; get a rake of Horizons and hook them on the end of *an operating consist*. If January is slow, make the regular consist shorter.
 
afigg said:
What ever is going on with the lockout of room reservations on the Star for a two month period, it is NOT the safety patrol special train. Since the reservation system shows coach seats for sale, either the Star will be dropping its sleeper cars for 2 months or there is an error in the reservation system data.
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Perhaps a reservation system error. The "sold out" status starts on January 12th and runs through March 26th, which is a very long time. Dining car service is still promised according to the reservation system.

But maybe the Star will be dropping its sleepers for 2-plus months. Amtrak did press extra Viewliners into service recently; maybe they need to pull some out of service for inspections to make up for it. I suppose the Star is the train where removing sleepers is likely to have the least impact. If this is done, most passengers will divert to the Meteor. The Meteor makes all the connections at WAS, and is faster so gets most of the longer-distance passengers anyway, and has a pretty quick bus connection to Tampa. Kind of sucks for people coming from Raleigh or the rest of the Star route in the Carolinas, though. (And on the day the Safety Patrol train runs, if it's using the Meteor's consist, travellers along that route are even more screwed.) Furthermore the Meteor's rooms may fill up...

It's also possible that the Star is honest-to-goodness sold out of rooms. The Meteor is pretty close (3 roomettes & 2 bedrooms left on several random days I looked). While this seems very unlikely, perhaps an enterprising travel agent has sold a whole lot of Amtrak trips or something.

Another possibility is that these blocks have been reserved by a travel agent and may be released later. It's also possible there's an internal debate over fare policy or capacity allocation and the rooms are being blocked out until it's settled. :)

The southbound Meteor is already "sold out" on both January 11th and January 18th. The northbound is "sold out" on January 15th. Two of these are probably the "safety patrol train", but I don't know what the other one is; trackwork, maybe? Anyway, right now the Amtrak option from DC to Florida on January 18 seems to be coach on the Star, period, and the same on January 15th in the other direction. Not cool and not well thought out -- especially given the evidence that the Silver Service doesn't have much of a January/February dip in riders compared to every other train. Hopefully the available reservations will change as January gets closer.
 
Nathanael,

Based on previous years, 15th/18th would be the Safety Patrol Train. They tend to shoot for days surrounding MLK Day Weekend.

As to the sold-out situation...I haven't a clue. One barely plausible (if odd) explanation would be that they moved to cut the train back to a single sleeper (for maintenance issues) and this threw everything to being sold out.

I find myself suddenly wondering what would happen if Iowa Pacific tried to intervene in a very public manner...

Edit: Ok, I checked both WAS-RVR and MIA-TPA to confirm the total sell-out. Something is really strange about this.
 
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