No "studies or surveys"?? I don't know if you're aware of this (one would hope you would be with all the interest you take in my employer), but there are reams of statistics concerning both current and historic ridership on all of Amtrak's routes.
EWC, not only am I aware of that, I've been busy posting numbers in this topic from those statistics. And quite frankly I don't see the evidence in those stats to prove that this proposal is a good idea. In fact, the Sunset's best numbers (which I just posted a few minutes ago) came when the Sunset ran full length LAX to Orlando.
So if these are the numbers that were presented to the board, then they are ignoring reality, unless there is a study that clearly shows that going daily without sleepers between NOL and SAS will see such a large increase in ridership as to offset the losses from dropping the sleepers.
And a 3-car train would serve the current SAS-NOL portion adequately most of the year, at FAR less cost than the current consist.
Actually we don't really know that this is true. While unfortunately we don't have many examples to work with, consider the following comparison to the Palmetto, which is about 200 miles longer than the revised Sunset SAS-NOL would be. The Palmetto generates only $4.9 million more in revenue than does the Sunset, yet it takes 2.5 times as many passengers for that small gain in revenue. And of course, it runs daily, unlike the Sunset. If the real Sunset were running daily, I've no doubt that its revenue would swell considerably and put the Palmetto to shame and quite possibly still not carrying more passengers.
Now the Palmetto's losses are less than the Sunset's, $11.8M to the Sunset's $31.4M; but then the Palmetto doesn't force passengers to transfer in order to reach 3 major markets. Additionally the Palmetto gets to share its expenses with the Silver Service trains, along with the corridor trains for the NEC. That reduces station overhead charges to the Palmetto's budget. And finally, at least part of the losses, and potentially more than half of the expenses charged to the Sunset come from west of San Antonio. So the losses east of SAS right now are probably not much worse than the Palmetto's.
BTW, there are a couple of "possible" additions for the more distant future. Management has talked about extending either the CNO or the Crescent AS the stub train to SAS - an interesting concept, but one which would require more significant schedule changes, so that's a bit further down the line.
Yes, we've all heard those ideas and discussed them.
Also under discussion - if CSX ever bends (and it will probably require the FRA to step in and enforce longstanding agreements) - is the idea of having the stub train continue on through to JAX; yet another idea they're toying with is to extend the CNO to JAX.
What CSX? Amtrak can restore service tomorrow to Orlando if it wants to, at least on a 3 day a week schedule. CSX gave them the go ahead more than 3 years ago. The only one preventing service to Orlando is Amtrak!
And if we're talking about extending the "stub' train through, well then fine Amtrak needs to work that out with CSX. However, now we're right back to needed a full service train with sleepers and a diner, so we've accomplished nothing if we're using the stub train. We could just make the current Sunset daily and be done with it. No need to force passengers to change in SAS, which would be providing a lesser service because of that transfer.
If we send the City east, we'll then that's a horse of a different color. However, now we're forcing people into a three seat ride if they want to go Orlando to LAX.
Amtrak is not in the business of providing land cruises; they are in the business of providing transportation. Just like commercial airlines, some people are willing to pay for extra amenities, but especially given that Amtrak is constantly under the microscope of Congress regarding spending, there are many places where it simply does not warrant carrying passengers in sleeper accommodations. I have worked the SL from LAX-NOL many, many times. Yes, occasionally there can be several sleeper rooms occupied; but more often than not (and revenue statistics for the sleepers bear this out), there are nearly-empty sleeper cars that have to remain fully staffed all the way into NOL. It makes no financial sense, and complaining about the lack of premium services like that does nothing to offset the massive losses that such services incur.
Sorry, but the revenue stats for the sleepers do not bear that out. In fact, if I take the sleeper ridership stats for the Sunset for 2008, divide by 3 to arrive at a daily total, then multiply by 7 to arrive at a potential number that can be compared to all other Amtrak services, the Sunset is selling more rooms than the Silver Star, the City, the Eagle, and the Crescent. And as I've already posted earlier, even running 3 days a week, the sleeper revenues are greater than the Cardinal and fall only $260K behind the City, despite carrying less than half the number of passengers. If I play the same trick of dividing by 3, and then multiplying by 7, the Sunset now exceeds the sleeper revenues of the Cardinal, Silver Star, Capitol Limited, the City, the Eagle, the Lake Shore, and the Crescent.
And if I go back and look at sleeper numbers from 2003 & 2004, pre-dating Katrina and the suspension of service west of NOL, things get really interesting. Back then passenger counts exceeded only the Cardinal and the Three Rivers. However, sleeper revenue exceeded the Cardinal, 3R's, the Silver Meteor, the Capitol Limited, the City of NOL, the Eagle, and the Crescent. And that was with 3 day a week service. Just imagine what this train could do with daily service.
You should actually rejoice that travel times between LAX-NOL will be reduced by something like 5-6 hours both directions! It makes for a much more attractive proposition for the average traveler.
This can be accomplished without changing the trains to the proposed plan, and in fact knocking 5 or 6 hours off the current schedules has nothing to do with the proposed changes and everything to do with better time keeping on the part of Union Pacific. Back in I believe between 2000 and 2002, Amtrak was forced to add 10-1/2 hours of padding to the Sunset's schedule because of the UP delays; 2 on the CSX side and 8-1/2 on the UP side. Amtrak is simply reclaiming part of that time because UP is doing better at getting the trains over the road. And they still aren't getting all that padding back.
More trains and quicker travel times are a GOOD thing. American Orient Express and its ilk are constantly going under for a REASON! Keep your eyes and ears - and mind - open in the coming months for lots of announcements regarding new services and new equipment (anybody heard of the Superliner 3's they're designing right now?). Many less-populated areas of the midwest and southeast, in particular, are about to get a lot more travel options.
I wouldn't argue that more trains and quicker travel times are a good thing. But we're not getting more trains out of this change, and the quicker times have nothing to do with the proposed changes.
