Acela/Regional Fares Hiked

I just went ahead and pulled the latest buckets for the Acela and Regionals. Here's what I've got now:

WAS-NYP (Acela)

Bucket 1: $149

Bucket 2: $174

Bucket 3: $199

Bucket 4: $224

Bucket 5: $249

First Class: $112 additional

WAS-NYP (Regional)

Bucket E: $49

Bucket 1: $82

Bucket 2: $117

Bucket 3: $141

Bucket 4: $158

Business Class: $41 additional

WAS-BOS (Acela)

Bucket 1: $167

Bucket 2: $195

Bucket 3: $223

Bucket 4: $251

Bucket 5: $279

First Class: $126 additional

WAS-BOS (Regional)

Bucket E: $70

Bucket 1: $99

Bucket 2: $141

Bucket 3: $170

Bucket 4: $191

Business Class: $50 additional

NYP-BOS (Acela)

Bucket 1: $107

Bucket 2: $125

Bucket 3: $142

Bucket 4: $160

Bucket 5: $178

First Class: $80 additional

NYP-BOS (Regional)

Bucket E: $49

Bucket 1: $71

Bucket 2: $101

Bucket 3: $122

Bucket 4: $137

Business Class: $36 additional

Overall, it's about +2.5-3% on the Acelas and about +3-4% on the Regionals versus the last check I did in May. I can't find the initial bucket-tracking thread I tried to start up, but of particular note, the top two buckets on the Acela WAS-BOS are now over $250, and the top two buckets in FC are over $375. WAS-NYP, top bucket is just outside $250 for BC, and it's $361 for FC. There's a non-trivial chance that by the end of next year, top bucket will be outside the point guarantee level.

Interestingly, the discount (Bucket E) fares are unchanged.

Acela has now become the most overpriced service for what you actually get. Shows how hungry we all are for even a relatively mediocre rail service

jis said:

Acela has now become the most overpriced service for what you actually get. Shows how hungry we all are for even a relatively mediocre rail service

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It could easily cost $1000 for my wife and me to head up to Boston for the weekend on Acela. That's in coach (er, I mean "Business Class"). Seriously? No thanks.

As the old Movie Mogul Sam Goldwyn used to say: "At those prices, include me out!" Guess the Business Travelers on the NEC (and that includes Amtrak Joe! ^_^ )that have their Travel Expenses Paid (ie those that will end up in the New AGR Executive Class)don't care what it Costs but those of us in the 47% that the Rich sneer at will have to ride the Regionals or even Mega Bus of the Chinatown Death Traps! I agree with jis that Acela is vastly overated @ these Prices!

Same here. Even though AE does not stop at KIN, Ihave ridden to either NYP or BOS to do point runs. But at those rates, no thanks! (Not to long ago, low bucket NYP-BOS was only $95!)

Interesting that there is no bucket E on the Acela and there is no bucket 5 on the regionals. What bucket do each start at when Amtrak starts with fairs?

I don't see the value in the Acela for personal use but I do see the value for bussiness use. Proffessional services (i.e. lawyers, engineers, accountants, architects, escorts, etc.) probably bill themselves out at somewhere between $100-200/hour so if they can save an hour of time, I can see it being worth it.

However, when I was on it last year, I was shocked how packed it was on a Saturday afternoon. These were not bussiness people. I guess some people just need the best of everything, even though it is not much better for the money.

E bucket on Regionals is the special 14-day advance purchase fare. There is no such animal on AE. As far as AE being full on the weekends, that is the only time that discounts (like AAA) can be used on AE. There are no discounts during the week.

These are ridiculous fares. I agree with jis. Just shows how badly we are lacking in rail infrastructure. The demand seems to be so much higher than supply that people are willing to pay such insanely high fares. Unfortunately I am not one of those people who can afford such fares, so travel for me along NE corridor now will have to be Megabus, Boltbus, or even flying can be cheaper.

I had to travel from BOS to BWI last month and got a flight ticket for $68, booking merely two weeks in advance. The travel was a breeze. Reached the airport merely 45 minutes before flight time, got through security in under 5 minutes, spent the 20-odd minutes waiting for boarding to start using the free Wi-fi at the airport, the flight was a short 1hr10min hop, and at BWI was out of the airport in 15 minutes after the flight landed. Easy peasy. Curb to curb travel time under 3 hours, and hey I got a complimentary drink too, you don't get even on Acela Business Class.

Just to make sure I did not get one-off lucky with the fare, I checked BOS-WAS flight fares for all days in January 2013 and guess what, on several days the cheapest flight fares are as low as $45 and every single day there are tickets available starting at $68. Cheapest Greyhound fares are also $45 but the journey time is 10 hours. I love trains no doubt about that, but when the fares are so skewed, I'd rather fly.

People really, really want to ride trains.

Unfortunately, I don't see the prices dropping until Amtrak gets more rolling stock. At that point, it may make sense to "make it up on volume".

Amtrak has more or less said that they expect PPR on the Acela to drop when they get a decent amount of additional rolling stock/capacity for it.

Of course, to be fair, the Regionals are fairly rarely at high bucket (some days you can find most or all of them in the lower two regular buckets), so I think bucket 4 there is more of an "If we can get this much, we'll take it" bucket for maxing out revenue on crowded days than it is a "regular" bucket. And of course, if the train is slam full, I can see this being fairly well justified.

An interesting observation: Bucket 1 on the Acela is $149 WAS-NYP, which is a bit above Regional bucket 3 for that segment ($141). Bucket 1 on the Acela is $167 WAS-BOS, which is just below bucket 3 on the Regional for that segment ($170). NYP-BOS, Bucket 1 on the Acela is $107, just above bucket 2 on the Regional ($101) and well below bucket 3 ($122). I'm guessing that this is a mixed function of demand and relative speed (which are themselves likely linked).

Finally, as to the reason for the fares going up so much: I hate to put it so crassly, but congratulations: We're getting Goldman Sachs to subsidize the Silvers. As a corollary to all of this, doubling the Acela operation would all but eliminate Amtrak's "operating" subsidy needs assuming there was no knock-on damage and that they could fill the seats. Likewise, I wonder what knocking another 10-20 minutes off of WAS-NYP could do for allowing them to slap another $25 onto the fares there and/or pushing up ridership (if they ever get the equipment to handle more folks). Finally, this is probably the only way Amtrak will actually be able to afford new equipment for the whole NEC (which they'll need sooner or later).

Capacity, capacity, capacity. Sell their soul to the FRA and buy every congressman a top escort if need be and then reequip the NEC with world class trains and run longer trains faster. The more seats that they are able to offer, the lower the prices.

Paulus said:

Capacity, capacity, capacity. Sell their soul to the FRA and buy every congressman a top escort if need be and then reequip the NEC with world class trains and run longer trains faster. The more seats that they are able to offer, the lower the prices.

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I'm not sure if I actually care if the prices ever come down (in real terms, at least), though I wouldn't mind making up more ground on volume than on prices alone. Again, if Amtrak could add another 3,000,000 passengers to the Acela at the same PPR, that'd be another $450 million in the bank. If that's done with longer trains, you don't have to add operating crews or quite as much to the fuel cost...I can think of a lot that $250-300 million in added cash flow can cover (edit: And not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm a lot more concerned with achieving that than most of us are, but doing that is probably the best shot we have at getting serious network expansion and/or expanding the NEC's fast, frequent service from BOS-WAS outwards).

Folks, these price changes went into effect back in November IIRC. I always find out because the monthly price for my H's BOS - PVD pass jumps. When we first moved to Providence 3 years ago, I believe the monthly was $340. Now its $378. It jumped from $360 to $378 with the latest increase.

I understand that amtrak needs to make money, and my guess is that they do their research before raising prices. But it definitely stings - that $38/month difference is $456/year, money which I would rather spend on things to stimulate the economy.

I still think a low bucket $107 fare from BOS - NYP with a free first class upgrade is a pretty good deal, but I might be taking the regional more often now on my frequent jaunts to NYC. I should also add that while I think the NYP - BOS fares are pretty reasonable, when you add on PHL (so going BOS - PHL) I think the prices are exorbitant, and same thing with DC. Especially when I can find airfare at the $100 each way range pretty easily from PVD - PHL or PVD - WAS.

Those top two Regional buckets are out in full force during peak Friday, Sunday, and holiday travel periods. Off-peak, the two low buckets are readily available even a day before departure.

For the record, the actual booking codes for the Regional buckets are (in ascending order) YE, YD, YB, YA, Y. For Regional Business change the Y to J. The extra-low fares sold during three-day sales book into YF.

Acela buckets are KD, KC, KB, KA, K. For Acela First change the K to P.

These fares are much too expensive, even for riding a train. For some reason these trains still get loads of pax, which probably means Amtrak needs even more equipment.

I just checked Greyhound/Peter Pan fares for comparison:

Boston-New York:

$15

New York-Washington:

$17

Boston-Washington:

$45

I know, I know, it's a bus but at least for SD trips I would like to keep my fare expenses at a two-digit number.

The bus companies are heavily undercutting Amtrak here. Of course, Amtrak has a definite speed advantage.

However, if one is willing to go Megabus, the fares from Boston/NY and NY/DC are no more than $30, even bought less than a week in advance. (Peak Friday/Sunday buses can reach $35.) Even cheaper than Greyhound.

Boltbus also finds itself in that $30 range for this Friday. I'm not sure I could justify spending the extra money on Amtrak when bus service is that inexpensive.

jebr said:

The bus companies are heavily undercutting Amtrak here. Of course, Amtrak has a definite speed advantage.

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In some markets, namely BOS-NYP, Amtrak's speed advantage is not actually very much at all. The Acela is scheduled for 3:35 or so, and the fastest Regional is something like 4 hours flat (most are more like 4:20), while Megabus is scheduled for 4:15 according to their website and can be faster than that if traffic is minimal.

Most of my coworkers, for example, tend to take Megabus or similar for leisure trips in this market for that reason, even though the train is undoubtedly more comfortable and greatly enhances one's ability to work while traveling.

Swadian Hardcore said:

These fares are much too expensive, even for riding a train. For some reason these trains still get loads of pax, .....

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Well, apparently they aren't much too expensive if they are filled with people! They might be more expensive than you would be willing to pay, but that is a different issue. The prices are higher than I usually like to pay, but I use points earned through use of the AGR credit card to pay for my NEC trips. As long as ridership and revenue continue to increase, expect prices to continue to rise. In the northeast, Amtrak doesn't really market themselves as the cheapest way to travel, they advertise as the most civilized way to travel (don't wait in lines at the airport/sit back and relax and use the free WIFI* connection speeds may vary!/plenty of room to do work and stay connected/Downtown station locations/etc....). I think they are happy to give up the highly price sensitive rider and go for the business man, the upper-middle class family going to see grandma, the young professionals going away for a weekend crowd.

Actually Acela's speed advantage in terms of O to D time is somewhat artificially differentiated from the Regionals by putting the Regionals in schedules that are way slower than practically possible, and still the difference is not really enough to justify the fare difference. As I said, we are so starved for rail service that we will pay crazy fares to get even relatively mediocre service. Good marketing can spud up income upto a certain point.

jebr said:

The bus companies are heavily undercutting Amtrak here. Of course, Amtrak has a definite speed advantage.

However, if one is willing to go Megabus, the fares from Boston/NY and NY/DC are no more than $30, even bought less than a week in advance. (Peak Friday/Sunday buses can reach $35.) Even cheaper than Greyhound.

Boltbus also finds itself in that $30 range for this Friday. I'm not sure I could justify spending the extra money on Amtrak when bus service is that inexpensive.

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It would be interesting to get actual ridership numbers and the current annual growth for Megabus, Boltbus, Greyhound, other major bus carriers for the major NEC city pairs: WAS-NYC, WAS-PHL, NYC-BOS, etc. We know from the Amtrak monthly reports that the Acela and the NE Regionals (for passenger going from one NEC stop to another) carried 11.4 million in FY2012. How many combined did the intercity bus operators carry?

On the latest fare prices, I do have some concern that the Acela and Regional high bucket prices may over time erode Amtrak's younger customer base. Amtrak may become too dependent on the high fares and be less able to cut prices to compete if NEC ridership starts to decline. In the meantime, the Acelas and NE Regionals generated $1.04 billion in ticket sales in FY2012. Time to use that income along with the state capital charge payments to start to order new rolling stock.

Ouch! Still, British train fares are no cheaper, at least for peak time tickets.

Lancaster to London (230 miles, so about the same distance as Washington to New York) is £153 ($246) peak one-way in standard class, £220 ($354) in first class. This is about the same as top-bucket prices on Acela. Round-trip tickets cost double.

One big difference is that off-peak tickets are somewhat more affordable; in this case, £81.20 ($131) one-way and £82.20 ($132) round-trip. From Lancaster, "off-peak" means "arrive at 10:12 or later, Mon-Fri, or any time Sat, Sun or public holidays" towards London (beware: time restrictions from other stations vary; e.g. from Preston, the next station towards London, you can't arrive until 11:12 I think; also be aware of the restrictions from London). Non-flexible "advance" tickets are also occasionally available on routes and at times that no-one else wants to travel. Very occasionally you get the £15 ($24) one-way fares they advertise; more often it's only slightly cheaper than half an off-peak round trip ticket.

I've not checked, but I understand that Shinkansen fares are similarly expensive. They don't have the "carrot" of the occasional "bargain" fare or the same level of discounts either.

TCRT said:

jebr said:

The bus companies are heavily undercutting Amtrak here. Of course, Amtrak has a definite speed advantage.

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In some markets, namely BOS-NYP, Amtrak's speed advantage is not actually very much at all. The Acela is scheduled for 3:35 or so, and the fastest Regional is something like 4 hours flat (most are more like 4:20), while Megabus is scheduled for 4:15 according to their website and can be faster than that if traffic is minimal.

Most of my coworkers, for example, tend to take Megabus or similar for leisure trips in this market for that reason, even though the train is undoubtedly more comfortable and greatly enhances one's ability to work while traveling.

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I agree with TCRT. Amtrak dosen't have much of a speed advantage, especially considering Greyhound is even faster than Magabus at only 4:05. BoltBus is also jointly owned by GLI/PPP and both companies pitch into the equipment pool.

Looks like it's the old breakdown of Amtrak for comfort, Greyhound for price, and AA/UA/DL/US for speed, even though in this case the airlines lose out due to extra time on the ground.

I think it's the old "Look at me I am a member of the elite class" thing...

But if the trains are near full, then the prices are following the standard model of supply and demand...

How can y'all say that the prices to too expensive? Sure they are high. But if they are increasing revenue - even at the loss of, say, 2% of ridership - it's WHAT BUSINESSES DO.

Just because you're a railfan doesn't mean you're entitled to Acela First Class and a Bedroom on every long distance train.

Swadian Hardcore said:

I agree with TCRT. Amtrak dosen't have much of a speed advantage, especially considering Greyhound is even faster than Magabus at only 4:05. BoltBus is also jointly owned by GLI/PPP and both companies pitch into the equipment pool.

Looks like it's the old breakdown of Amtrak for comfort, Greyhound for price, and AA/UA/DL/US for speed, even though in this case the airlines lose out due to extra time on the ground.

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The difference with Amtrak, in my mind, is not just speed but reliability. Megabus's and Greyhound's trip times are highly dependent on traffic. I've been on buses where we experienced significant delays due to traffic or weather. While Amtrak does have the occasional NEC problem, by and large if I'm traveling on a peak travel day or a peak travel time, I consider Amtrak to be well worth the premium because I know I will reliably get there. It's the same decision that I make versus flying - flying can occasionally be faster and cheaper, but the second weather moves in and the airports start to back up, I'm much better off having taken the train. Now the same isn't true for major weather events, but by and large everything shuts down during those.