I'm running brute force checks on the Silver Service for availability right now. The short version is that the Star is regularly sold out RGH-DLD right now (and is selling out a lot more than the Meteor WAS-DLD). Now, it seems that there's a wacky game afoot with the buckets for the Star are massively lower than those on the Meteor.
ORL-WAS I find the following roomette buckets for each train (coach prices unchanged):
Bucket Star Meteor
(1) $159 $277
(2) $188 $371
(3) $221 $470
(4) $553With the coach fare ($123) added, this gives:
What this tells me is that there may be a concerted effort on the part of management to grossly underprice the Star, but I'm not sure what the game is. The differential is massive (the Star is always the cheaper of the two by at least $56, and on some days you're looking at over $330 more for the Meteor). The way I see it, management is doing one of three things:
(1) They're sandbagging the Star's sleeper revenue. This would sabotage the diner-free experiment because frankly, the train could run slam full and still bring in less revenue (e.g. "We lost more in reduced revenue than we saved by cutting the diner!").
(2) They're spiking the Star's ridership numbers. This is the opposite of #1, since showing a massive swell in ridership amid the experiment would seem to validate it (e.g. "A cheaper sleeper product can sell a huge amount of space! Give us more sleepers!").
(3) They panicked at the mass of cancellations and overcompensated with lower fares. I heard rumblings of "thousands" of cancellations in response to the diner cut, so it is quite possible that someone slammed the "PANIC" button and dropped fares even further to prevent a massive loss of ridership.
I really can't decide between the three explanations (I frankly lean towards #1). As it stands, if what's showing on Amsnag pans out it seems like the Star could add quite a few riders but lose enough in revenue that the diner removal still shows as a "failure".
ORL-WAS I find the following roomette buckets for each train (coach prices unchanged):
Bucket Star Meteor
(1) $159 $277
(2) $188 $371
(3) $221 $470
(4) $553With the coach fare ($123) added, this gives:
Code:
Bucket Star Meteor
(1) $282 $400
(2) $311 $494
(3) $344 $593
(4) $676
(1) They're sandbagging the Star's sleeper revenue. This would sabotage the diner-free experiment because frankly, the train could run slam full and still bring in less revenue (e.g. "We lost more in reduced revenue than we saved by cutting the diner!").
(2) They're spiking the Star's ridership numbers. This is the opposite of #1, since showing a massive swell in ridership amid the experiment would seem to validate it (e.g. "A cheaper sleeper product can sell a huge amount of space! Give us more sleepers!").
(3) They panicked at the mass of cancellations and overcompensated with lower fares. I heard rumblings of "thousands" of cancellations in response to the diner cut, so it is quite possible that someone slammed the "PANIC" button and dropped fares even further to prevent a massive loss of ridership.
I really can't decide between the three explanations (I frankly lean towards #1). As it stands, if what's showing on Amsnag pans out it seems like the Star could add quite a few riders but lose enough in revenue that the diner removal still shows as a "failure".