montana governor criticizes amtrak ski fee

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Whitefish is not the only station that handles a lot of skis. I'm thinking that the Vermonter takes a lot of skiiers to their destination. Amtrak has been charging extra for transporting bicycles for years.

If you want to go skiing at Mt. Bachelor in Oregon you have to carry on your skis to get off at Chemult and load them onto the shuttle bus to Bend.

If the cost of shipping your skis is too much, try renting the skis when you get to your ski resort.
 
I seriously doubt that a $10 baggage fee for skis or a snow board is going to be a deal killer for anyone. Adult lift tickets at White Fish are about $60 a day.
 
I seriously doubt that a $10 baggage fee for skis or a snow board is going to be a deal killer for anyone. Adult lift tickets at White Fish are about $60 a day.
i dunno. we used to take the eb from spk-wgl spend the day x-country skiing in glacier and back home that night (or stay a night in wgl and then home next evening). 2 adults and 3 kids. an extra $50 would have been a serious consideration
 
This is a small price to pay for equipment loaded and unloaded. I suspect extra stations staff is needed to assist with baggage, on and off. Every airline charges a arm and a leg for baggage handling, where is the difference. The Governor must have little to do to make skis on Amtrak an issue. As tomfuller said, renting equipment is far more costly than $10.
 
I seriously doubt that a $10 baggage fee for skis or a snow board is going to be a deal killer for anyone. Adult lift tickets at White Fish are about $60 a day.
i dunno. we used to take the eb from spk-wgl spend the day x-country skiing in glacier and back home that night (or stay a night in wgl and then home next evening). 2 adults and 3 kids. an extra $50 would have been a serious consideration
actually, come to think of it, i guess it would be an extra $100 rt. definite deal killer
 
Its brutal. They used to let you carry on your skis (CZ is always loaded with ski/snowboards), but it really does make me turn to driving if I want to take a ski trip.
 
This is a small price to pay for equipment loaded and unloaded. I suspect extra stations staff is needed to assist with baggage, on and off. Every airline charges a arm and a leg for baggage handling, where is the difference. The Governor must have little to do to make skis on Amtrak an issue. As tomfuller said, renting equipment is far more costly than $10.
If there truly is an extra cost for loading/unloading skis, then this makes sense. Somehow I suspect it's not that much more work than the average bag, especially in Whitefish where they'd be prepared for it. Have it just count as one of the two bags allowed.
 
On Superliners, there is a compartment just behind the trucks where they carry the skis. Yes, it must be locked and unlocked by the staff, but I'm not sure but I think the passenger carries them to and collects them from that spot. So no extra staff is needed!
 
Why don't they simply offer to cover it for visitors to/from Montana then?
 
Amtrak's current official ski policy:

Carry-On —50 lbs. (23 kg)

No Larger than 72" in Height

Checked — 50 lbs. — 75 Linear Inches

Oversize Items (76 – 100 linear inches) — $20 Each

Allowance

  • Snow Skis
     
  • Water Skis
     
  • Snowboards
     
  • Poles
     
  • Boots

Requirements

  • Skis/snowboards may be carried onboard or checked free of charge in lieu of a piece of baggage.
     
  • Skis/snowboards must be enclosed in a full-length protective cover (vinyl/cloth/nylon/or hard-sided case). Ski bags for transport are available at most staffed locations.

----

So, depends how long your skis are. If they're < 75", the skis simply count as a piece of baggage. Otherwise, they incur the $20 fee for oversize baggage. I have no mental sense of how long skis are.
 
Also, the Whitefish station is not the busiest station on the line. Even excluding stations with other Amtrak service, St. Paul has twice as many passengers as Whitefish. (Each endpoint has more passengers but also has more than just the Empire Builder, and I can't coax out the Empire Builder-only numbers. My guess is that they would still have more passengers than Whitefish on the Empire Builder, though.)
 
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I seriously doubt that a $10 baggage fee for skis or a snow board is going to be a deal killer for anyone. Adult lift tickets at White Fish are about $60 a day.
Just to set things straight-I live in Whitefish and the current lift ticket prices are now $69/day. I think the governor put hoof in mouth. The airlines charge an arm and a leg for skis and boot bags, so this wouldn't break the bank for most travelers
 
I guess it's sad that I think $69 is good! I almost always ski at Mammoth (~$90 a day, and no multi-day discounts) and up in Tahoe as well, where it varies widely based on resort (could be $20, could be $120). And when I say $69 is good, I mean $69 is great for a really good mountain. I've heard some wonderful thing about Big Mountain (as it was called when I when I was in Whitefish), and I would love to ski there. $20 round trip would be perfectly fine for my mom to pay with her skis, and it would not be a problem at all for most people. I still rent skis since I'm growing :)
 
How much extra work does transporting skis really require and why did it suddenly become a cost recovery issue?
BINGO! I ran a several businesses on my own for years, and not everything should be looked at for "cost recovery". Some features, services, add-ons are simply a "cost of doing business." However, NOT every business feels the same way. Think about Ryan Air....
 
How much extra work does transporting skis really require and why did it suddenly become a cost recovery issue?
BINGO! I ran a several businesses on my own for years, and not everything should be looked at for "cost recovery". Some features, services, add-ons are simply a "cost of doing business." However, NOT every business feels the same way. Think about Ryan Air....
They're not recovering much in the way of costs anyhow with this policy. I rather doubt that Amtrak transports more than 2,000 to 3,000 pairs of skies a year. That's about $30K, if that, in income thanks to this new policy; pocket change to Amtrak.

I can only assume that they simply wish to discourage the practice of bringing skies onto the train for some reason. Either that or someone at Amtrak with no clue of the realities decided that this would be a nice profit margin area.
 
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