Silver Service Coach/Sleeper Analysis

[AmtrakBlue]

I don't even recall what my coach attendant looked like on the Cardinal last fall. If s/he provided a service, I was unaware of it (other than the bathrooms were clean).

 

[Eyegor]

Maybe someone should start a new thread on coach attendants. I would find it of great interest.

 

[Paulus]

BTW, just the fact that one can raise fares on a highly traveled corridor with huge business clientale, where Acelas provide a useful service with the right O-D times etc.has very little relevance to what can be done in Sleepers. If anyone truly believes that these two are somehow relevant to each other just shows a profound lack of understanding of what causes people pay for a service.

Also except for the coneheaded railfans, none cares whether a train is fastest or the slowest fast train or has low or high capacity. As long as it serves a customers purpose they will ride and pay the fare that they deem to be the value of the service. So all of those other factors are mostly irrelevant too.

Wasn't intended really as a direct comparison so much as a pointing out where Amtrak has dealt with an excess of demand by raising fares. If we're already at the break-even point for sleepers, that's something else entirely obviously.

 

[afigg]

I must say that I have never understood the need for Coach attendants either, specially when there are no pillows to hand out. They should be replaced by a single keep the toilets tidy person per 4 coaches. One person should be able to manage 8 toilets, perhaps even 10.

BTW, just the fact that one can raise fares on a highly traveled corridor with huge business clientale, where Acelas provide a useful service with the right O-D times etc.has very little relevance to what can be done in Sleepers. If anyone truly believes that these two are somehow relevant to each other just shows a profound lack of understanding of what causes people pay for a service.

That Acela ridership has managed to still increase while the fares keep going up shows just how strong the NEC corridor demand is. When the order was placed for the 20 (short) Acela trainsets some 15 years ago, they clearly underestimated the potential growth in NEC travel for a modern HSR train, even if it is not that fast an HSR train.

The recent monthly reports with the Acelas still growing in ridership and revenue while the LD trains have dropped off a little for sleeper ridership and revenue indicate that there are more price increases to be squeezed out of the Acelas while the prices for the LD sleepers may be hitting what the market will bear on most routes.

As for having a coach attendant keep the toilets clean, perhaps the Next Gen coach cars should have self cleaning toilets. Built in cleaning robot arms pick up the trash and wipe the sink, toilet, and floor automatically. Just have to make sure the cleaning robot arms don't deploy while someone is in the rest room.

 

[Anderson]

One thing I did neglect to point out: If they are filling up, the answer is quite clearly to raise prices until that is no longer a problem as has been done with the Acela (the slowest, lowest capacity, and priciest high speed train in the world).

Again, you want to misapply fixed dining car costs to the sleepers for some irrational reason. I realize there is no reasoning with you on such matters, Paulus; you have a mindless vendetta against sleepers. At this point I'm just debunking you for the audience.

No, it is for the entirely rational reason that the diners exist for the sake of the sleepers. You may have noticed a lack of diners on the trains without sleepers. The Lake Shore Limited has a high percentage of coach travelers using the diner (though that begs the question of just how many travelers at all use it), but they spend quite a paltry sum, certainly not enough to justify a full diner (as Amtrak recognized). Doesn't even make the LSL's F&B service perform much better for that matter.

As the recent discussion about bathroom cleanliness showed, coach car attendants are needed on long runs -- perhaps even more than are currently employed -- but are they actually getting the necessary work done? Does it make any sense to have coach car attendants far away in a dorm car where the coach passengers can't find them? (I say no.) Why is there one coach car attendant trying to handle two or even three entire coach cars, but only one sleeper car attendant per sleeping car (with arguably a lot less work)?

One person roving the entire train doing their job should ensure that the toilets remain clean. Quite frankly I've never understood why there are coach attendants in the first place if they aren't doing things like at seat meal service.

The Acela point only holds as a short-term solution. With the Acelas, in fact, this has pretty obviously been a sort of last resort on the scale it has been happening. The same thing has been happening on the Regionals and on some of the western LD trains.

Edit: To clarify what I mean, I think that Amtrak would rather increase capacity by a third than trying to jack fares up by 25% to achieve the same revenue result.