Reduced Consist Lengths for Post Holiday Travel

The Fred Frailey blog at the TRAINS website, and which I believe is open content, reports that Amtrak is planning to reduce the normal consists of most Long Distance trains during the slow post holiday travel period until February 28. Of course we all know that anything Amtrak is subject to instant and immediate change.


According to the report, both the Zephyr and Chief will have their nine car consist reduced to six, eliminating the Baggage, T-Dorm, and one Coach. The Coach Baggage will be used as intended and the Dining Car crew will be accommodated in line space.

The Starlight will lose five cars, two Coaches, Sleeper, T-Dorm, and the Pacific Parlour.

Empire Builder: Loses one of the two Seattle sleepers and the Seattle baggage-coach; the Portland section is unchanged.

The Capitol Limited will have a five car consist; two Sleepers, CCC Diner Lounge, Coach, Coach-Bagg.

Crescent, Silver Star and Silver Meteor: Each single-level train drops one of its four coaches.

Lake Shore Limited: Both the Boston and New York section drop an Amfleet coach, leaving the Boston part with one and the New York section with three.

Cardinal: Instead of three Amfleet II coaches, it will make do with two.

All told, it appears that Amtrak is gearing up for reduced ridership owing to cheaper gas. The squeeze that Amtrak is confronting is quite analogous to what the railroads were confronted with during the 50's as the Interstate highways were built and the airlines re-equipped with jet aircraft. Of any commercial passenger transportation provider, Amtrak is most vulnerable to "gas is cheap; let's just drive" decisions that travelers will be making. There really not that many "fly or drive" decisions made and I must ask "when was the last time you were on a flight with empty seats?". Besides, if the airlines do lose some ridership, they have plenty of room to reduce fares owing to their cheaper gas. Greyhound passengers? they have no choice; how many of them own a roadworthy vehicle to begin with?

The 1973-74 "gas crisis" showed with its ridership levels that were not exceeded until about 1999 how sensitive ridership is to "pain at the pump"; I highly doubt if it will be any different in this inverse setting.

- Gilbert B Norman

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