Winter season LD cutbacks

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jis

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Fred Frailey wrote a nice well balanced article on the subject in Trains, which you can see here:

http://cs.trains.com/trn/b/fred-frailey/archive/2014/12/18/amtrak-39-s-new-look.aspx

It is quite informative with facts that I have not seen described as concisely elsewhere. So I thought y'all may like it.

Now it is another matter what happened when Gene posted it on TO! It considerably increased the decibel level about the usual moaning about how the LD trains are about to get discontinued and this is the first step and so on and so forth. There is not much factual basis for most of the moaning, but there is a sort of perverse entertainment in it all I suppose :)
 
This isn't a bad move...remember that sleeper ridership analysis I did a few months back? This would seem to be conforming to the realities of that data by and large. The Cap/LSL cuts seem to be a side-effect of the disaster area that has been OTP (witness the October MPR).

With that said, the Silvers getting any cuts is a bit surprising (ridership there is pretty steady compared to other routes); I wouldn't be surprised, however, if there's a reason having to do with the mechanical office there.

Edit: I also agree with a comment made over on Trains.com that there's a good chance that some trains ought to run longer on some days on the basis of demand.
 
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Alright, I pulled up numbers from this year's MPRs; numbers are FY14/FY13:
January:
Star: 31,319/30,890 (505.15/498.23)
Cardinal: 7,426/7,856
Meteor: 25,648/24,781
Crescent: 19,283/18,382

February:
Star: 25,831/27,465 (461.27/490.45)
Cardinal: 6,512/7,103
Meteor: 22,251/28,737
Crescent: 17,416/19,675

June:
Star: 36,099/35,660 (601.65/594.33)
Cardinal: 9,981/10,744
Meteor: 31,006/33,972
Crescent: 26,639/27,631

July:
Star: 37,255/39,212
Cardinal: 11,441/11,198
Meteor: 33,115/37,112
Crescent: 27,735/30,253

Thoughts:
The Star has sufficient demand on a daily basis (a over 75% of peak season demand assuming the train ran every day during both periods) that cutting the coach may create a squeeze. The same can be said of the Meteor: In both cases, throwing the coach back on for at least Friday/Sunday would probably make sense.

The Crescent is harder to peg given the regular disruptions south of Atlanta, but on that basis alone I'd argue that the extra coach is probably needed...yes, per-train ridership dropped 40% but you probably lost about 10-15% of that from the trackwork cuts and the cut connections (however bad they are) that come with that. I'd need more detailed data, but on a quick glance I'd say the space is still needed on the north end while the space was never needed on the south end.

The Cardinal is a bit more complicated simply because of the 3x weekly nature of the train. You probably need the extra capacity east of Charlottesville no matter what, but I could see the train being a bit sparse in coach west of there. On the other hand, Amtrak added a sleeper for a few months and did wonders.

On the western trains, ignoring spares I count:
-Builder: One sleeper (5 sleepers)
-SW Chief: One transdorm (5 transdorms), one coach (5 coaches); one sleeper (5 sleepers) already off per normal rotation
-CA Zephyr: One transdorm (6 transdorms), one coach (6 coaches)
-Starlight: One sleeper (4 sleepers), two coaches (8 coaches)
-Capitol Limited: One diner (3 diners), one coach (3 coaches), one transdorm (3 transdorm), one SSL (3 SSLs)

In total, I count 14 sleepers, 14 transdorms, 3 diners, 3 SSLs, and 20 coaches free...which is probably enough to ensure that every Superliner train out of Chicago can run come hell or high water during the peak of the blizzard season. Considering that there seems to be a week somewhere in the winter where everything goes to pieces, this seems like a fair move...that list is three daily trains on any given route in peak season.

Another thought does come to mind: It might be worth Amtrak's time to schedule some pulses in car inspections (and this might be part of such an effort):
-Do ALL of the annual inspections (I think those take a few days per car) in the winter (Jan/Feb/early Mar). You'd knock fleet availability by about 5-10% during the period, yes, but you'd increase it by a few points in summer.
-Do a decent-sized pulse of quarterly inspections in late May/early June and plan on another pulse right after Labor Day, aimed at sleepers and LD coaches. If possible, run one or two trains a car short on a given cycle (i.e. the SW Chief runs a bit short on Tuesday out of CHI and Thursday out of LAX).

This would push fleet availability for July/August up into the range of 95% or so for about eight weeks (you would literally have almost no cars, and ideally no sleepers, out on inspection during this period); most trains could use an extra sleeper at that time of the year, and the only equipment you'd need to have on the sides would be protect stuff.
 
Good on Amtrak for doing this - I hope that they're able to schedule things like Anderson suggested and have the ability to surge some extra cars onto the trains during periods of high demand.

The Seattle section of the Empire Builder currently runs with a baggage car and a bag-coach? That seems odd.

(Someone also needs to point out that Fred got his numbers wrong, Amtrak is taking delivery of 20 cars, not 18 - the "extra" two were the testing units picked up in Philly).
 
What might make the most sense is to add cars based on demand. Most LD passengers do not buy at the ticket window right before the train departs so the demand should be able to be determined in advance and planned for accordingly. Ticket prices will surely rise and passengers may need to ride in full coaches but congress will be happier.
 
Excellent plan! I've ridden the TE many times when a dead head coach was carrying the markers from STL-SAS and vice versa and during certain times of the year the Coach Passenger count is so low that everyone would fit in one Coach!(normal count is two coaches)

The Eagle runs with only One P-42, (needs Two),and usually a CCC and Sight Seer Lounge and One Sleeper plus the Transdorm in the Consist! During most of the year the Sleeper is full resulting in High Bucket Rail Fares and Room Charges especially on #421/#422 Days! We need a Daily CHI-LAX Train on this Route with a Stub Train SAS- NOL! Time to restart the talks with UP and get it right this time!!
 
Adding cars on demand works in short corridors, like here in NC on the Piedmonts between Raleigh and Charlotte. It's easy because train 73 is used for train 74 and train 75 is used for train 76 on the same day.

For long distance trains, this scheme is much harder to do, owing to the fact that the round trip spans several days. Also, sometimes one consist is substituted for another when things go awry. It would require breaking consists apart much more often than what occurs now. That's additional expense and sometimes delay.

jb
 
Fred Frailey wrote a nice well balanced article on the subject in Trains, which you can see here:

http://cs.trains.com/trn/b/fred-frailey/archive/2014/12/18/amtrak-39-s-new-look.aspx

It is quite informative with facts that I have not seen described as concisely elsewhere. So I thought y'all may like it.
On the trains where I've paid close attention to the seasonal variation, the proposed cutbacks match pretty much exactly what I thought ought to happen. Right down to the drop in coach ridership on the LSL in winter, but no drop in sleeper ridership. (For the LSL, one nice effect is that in the winter the hike from the Boston sleeper to the dining car will get shorter!) The CL has a tendency to run about half a sleeper and a quarter of a coach lighter in winter, and the adjustments are just about right for that.

I do agree with Anderson's detailed notes regarding the Star/Meteor, but frankly those are nitpicks! Amtrak will be freeing up enough cars that they can change their minds about this.

So good work Amtrak. As Fred said, "This is what railroads routinely did in pre-Amtrak days, in those times of the year when business drops off."

Also it looks like Amtrak will take advantage of this for maintenance: "allows preventative maintenance to be performed (according to Vice President of Operations D. J. Stadtler),". So even better. I would now look to see whether extra workers are employed at Beech Grove during Jan-Feb only, or whether Beech Grove workers get more overtime during Jan-Feb...
 
My comments were more a concern that there was going to be an "over-cut" on a few routes in the South that don't have as much variability as others. That said, the point about providing an extra coach on certain days (for example, Friday south/Sunday north) does still stand as you'd only need to amend one set out of the four in use on the Star/Meteor/Crescent. You don't want to suddenly be selling out a bunch of trains.
 
AFAIK, Amtrak has been trimming many of the LD consists for the slow January-February season as standard practice. It appears that the news here is that they are simply planning to get more aggressive this year. However, the LD trains out of Chicago were affected by the deep freeze from the polar vortex last January and February. If this winter is a closer to a normal Midwest winter, may be a few more people taking the train.

Another advantage of pulling more of the equipment for the January-February slowdown besides catching up on maintenance is that it keeps the mileage off of the stored equipment. Replacements for the Superliners are likely to be some years away, so not adding unnecessary mileage can help extend the Superliner lifespan a bit.
 
In addition to the equipment that is being cut from the LD Routes, lots of OBS staff will be involved in this, either Extra Board Staff being furloughed or those with Seniority "bumping" others which will disrupt crews that usually work together and cause service changes since they may bid in positions not usually worked ( ie a Food Service person moving to SCA or a good SCA having to be a Coach Attendant etc.

There should be some savings to Amtrak in this since personnel costs are Amtraks largest cost item, but on the other hand, the winter weather with related delays will result in missed connections and an increase in customer service costs ( ie hotels, meals, alternate transportation, vouchers etc.)

Also when furloughs take place overtime expenses increase even though the micro managing Congress has tried to curtail this!

Be interesting to see how the Winter goes and how this plan plays out, at best it will probably be revenue neutral which seems to be some Republicans current " dream world" SOP when it comes to operations of Government agencies, so perhaps Mica and his followers will go bother some other entity about nickel and dime stuff!
 
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The Seattle section of the Empire Builder currently runs with a baggage car and a bag-coach? That seems odd.
I thought the same thing.. I've not seen this on my trains, just on the PDX section.. Ill have to my friend who is the conductor on the EB about that.
 
Fred Frailey wrote a nice well balanced article on the subject in Trains, which you can see here:

http://cs.trains.com/trn/b/fred-frailey/archive/2014/12/18/amtrak-39-s-new-look.aspx

It is quite informative with facts that I have not seen described as concisely elsewhere. So I thought y'all may like it.

Now it is another matter what happened when Gene posted it on TO! It considerably increased the decibel level about the usual moaning about how the LD trains are about to get discontinued and this is the first step and so on and so forth. There is not much factual basis for most of the moaning, but there is a sort of perverse entertainment in it all I suppose :)
The TO Passenger train forum is more political than about trains, and has become very negative recently about everything

Fred Frailey wrote a nice well balanced article on the subject in Trains, which you can see here:

http://cs.trains.com/trn/b/fred-frailey/archive/2014/12/18/amtrak-39-s-new-look.aspx

It is quite informative with facts that I have not seen described as concisely elsewhere. So I thought y'all may like it.

Now it is another matter what happened when Gene posted it on TO! It considerably increased the decibel level about the usual moaning about how the LD trains are about to get discontinued and this is the first step and so on and so forth. There is not much factual basis for most of the moaning, but there is a sort of perverse entertainment in it all I suppose :)
The TO Passenger Train forum is more of a political forum with occasional passenger train news, and has become very negative and cranky recently.
 
Be interesting to see how the Winter goes and how this plan plays out, at best it will probably be revenue neutral
Yeah. Even saving a little bit on the seasonal costs does good things, though.
By my rough calculations, the main savings here will be in car maintenance & fuel, not in OBS labor.

With $700K-$750K in maintenance and fuel per year per car, it could be worth about $100K/year/car (plus or minus 30%, maybe more) in fuel and maintenance to take a car off for two months.

Maybe $50K/year (again this is a vague guess based on wage levels) to take one attendant off for two months. A certain amount of labor costs ("premium based" ones) are invariant to number of hours worked, amounting to roughly $24K/employee on average, so those are never saved by furloughs. And obviously removing a baggage car or a crew car doesn't remove any attendants. And removing a coach car might not either depending on exactly how many there were on the train; I'm going to assume not.

Based on these vague numbers and Frailey's information, this would save costs of about:

- $300K on the SWC

- $350K on the CZ

- $250K on the EB

- $650K+ on the Coast Starlight (this probably does relieve a coach attendant, but I didn't include it in the number)

- $450K on the Capitol Limited

- $100K on each of Crescent, Star, Meteor, Palmetto

- $200K on the LSL

- less than $100K on the Cardinal (three-a-week messes up my calculations)

For most of them, this will be lost in the noise, and it'll be hard to tell whether anything changed financially. $100K-$200K is lost in the noise of revenue fluctuations on any route. Real operating subsidies on the CZ and SWC (before overhead) are over $16 million. The EB has so much disruption going on that it's impossible to tell anything.

However, on the Coast Starlight and Capitol Limited, this might be noticeable. The CL seems (from my estimates) to probably still require operating subsidy, but to be *very close* to breaking even before overhead, so even a few small changes may tip it over the line. (The next time Boardman makes a bargraph about losses on a "direct costs" basis, you can bet he wants more trains to be on the positive side of the ledger!)

The Coast Starlight is a lot further away from breakeven, but it looks like it saves by far the most money of all the consist adjustments. This is probably not quite right because I think one of those coaches was already being cut off seasonally.

Still, it's interesting that the Starlight has its consist adjusted more than the CZ -- Anderson's analysis said that the Starlight was the second-most-seasonal, but that the CZ was the most seasonal. I suspect this is because the CZ consist has fewer sleepers to start with, and doesn't have a "PPC", and therefore offers less opportunity for adjustment. The Starlight and EB are the only trains to lose a full sleeper during January.
 
The Seattle section of the Empire Builder currently runs with a baggage car and a bag-coach? That seems odd.
I thought the same thing.. I've not seen this on my trains, just on the PDX section.. Ill have to my friend who is the conductor on the EB about that.
I was surprised to see a coach-baggage on the Seattle section of the eastbound Empire Builder last Monday, but it was surely there. Is there surplus of Superliner coach baggage cars?
 
Recently? :D
TO has pretty much lost its credibility--at least on its passenger train forum--as a good source for information
"Recently" because its gotten much worse: an extreme political point of view and a webmaster who threatens those who disagree with him. Fred Frailey took them to task in Trains a few months ago, but it didn't seem to do any good.
 
I don't ever remember the private railroads cutting cars on Florida bound trains in the winter months even after the holidays. In fact, they would add cars. I lived across the highway from where the Southwind ran in Sellersburg, Indiana in late 1965 and 1966 when the trains was very well patronized. I used to track the number of cars when I would see it go through. In the winter months, it usually had a full capacity of 18 cars. Often times, in winter there were cars borrowed from other railroads. The Northern Pacific Lounge in the Sky Dome Sleeping car was standard from mid December until the end of April. In the off season summer months from May through September the Southwind usually had 11 revenue cars. I also know the New York-Florida trains added lots of cars in the winter months, but unfortunately, that market has somewhat evaporated under Amtrak.
 
Recently? :D
TO has pretty much lost its credibility--at least on its passenger train forum--as a good source for information
"Recently" because its gotten much worse: an extreme political point of view and a webmaster who threatens those who disagree with him. Fred Frailey took them to task in Trains a few months ago, but it didn't seem to do any good.
Yeah, I agree. it might have something to do with the crowd there getting older and crankier. But yes many there are insufferable in their complete lack of logic and common sense.
 
Since the Zephyr and Chief are going to lose the baggage car and transition sleeper, do you think they will put the regular sleepers on the rear, and stick the coaches up front? Not an issue for me either way, but I understand many people like the sleepers on the rear.
 
Since the Zephyr and Chief are going to lose the baggage car and transition sleeper, do you think they will put the regular sleepers on the rear, and stick the coaches up front? Not an issue for me either way, but I understand many people like the sleepers on the rear.
That is a good question because with both the Trans and Bag gone, that would put Rooms right up to the Engine which will be a bit too close with the exhaust venting problems and noise.
 
TOs has a bunch of Clint Eastwood types, hence the " Get off my lawn!" Posts.

There are a few good members that contribute lots of good info, some of them fellow AUers ( you know who you are!) Gene Poon is the lead dog on bashing Joe Boardman and Amtrak!

I read them daily but wouldn't pay to be a member, though as was said some of the pics and videos are good!
 
TOs has a bunch of Clint Eastwood types, hence the " Get off my lawn!" Posts.

There are a few good members that contribute lots of good info, some of them fellow AUers ( you know who you are!) Gene Poon is the lead dog on bashing Joe Boardman and Amtrak!

I read them daily but wouldn't pay to be a member, though as was said some of the pics and videos are good!
There is also the problem of the people who use it as a forum for the anti-passenger train lobby. I agree there is good information there, and nice pictures, but it is hard to appreciate the good because the bad is so terrible.
 
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