Why are U.S. rail companies snubbing the business traveler?

Interesting commentary. It all sounds great but, besides a commitment from Amtrak or others, there needs to be a lot of consumer education through marketing and advertising. Many people out there don't even consider rail let alone the discouragement (for those that do) when they look at the service itself (schedules, amenities, etc.).

Guest comment: Why are U.S. rail companies snubbing the business traveler? — by Robert Perrin

http://www.progressiverailroading.com/passenger_rail/article/Guest-comment-Why-are-US-rail-companies-snubbing-the-business-traveler--by-Robert-Perrin--46918

At least for the companies I have worked for, time is money. They want the quickest, shortest, travel time. That's also why business travelers tend to fly across the ocean, rather than take a cruise ship.

BTW, what would these other passenger rail companies you're thinking about, be? Other than possibly Alaska Railroad.

Cho Cho Charlie said:

At least for the companies I have worked for, time is money. They want the quickest, shortest, travel time. That's also why business travelers tend to fly across the ocean, rather than take a cruise ship.

BTW, what would these other passenger rail companies you're thinking about, be? Other than possibly Alaska Railroad.

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He mentions Iowa Pacific. He also mentions the Northeast Corridor, so I suppose he means commuter rail like NJT or SEPTA.

Over "commuter rail" or "corridor" distances, the train is nearly always faster than flying, and usually faster than driving. Corporate HQs are still kind of dumb about this though; I've read a lot of stories about people having trouble getting travel reimbursements.

neroden said:

Over "commuter rail" or "corridor" distances, the train is nearly always faster than flying, and usually faster than driving. Corporate HQs are still kind of dumb about this though; I've read a lot of stories about people having trouble getting travel reimbursements.

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Once I went through a mass job interview. It was a big event with dozens of candidate at a large company. I in fact was still in school at the time fairly close to the interview site. I needed to set up a hotel room with the corporate travel office. My mailing address was a good 50 miles away, but shouldn't take too long to drive.

When I called them the first thing they asked was what airport I was flying out of. I actually drove and collected mileage, but it did sort of tell me what they were thinking of first.

Companies and organizations don't even think the word "rail" exists except perhaps in the Northeast and have no idea about how to handle it.When I was employed, my major computer corporation had no way to issue rail tickets like they did airline tickets and were confused when I submitted Amtrak tickets for reimbursement.

When volunteering for the Red Cross, I went, on my second tour to Katrina in Louisiana. Airfares from Atlanta to Baton Rouge were outrageous - then they had to keep us overnight there before sending us to NOL. I proposed the train but they were so confused, they didn't know how to even approve the (far, far cheaper) rail travel and by the time they figured it out, it was too late.

The large multi-national that I work for, being a global company, and having the HQ of a business unit on the NEC has had support for travel by rail for over a decade now. Essentially the support for rail travel in the US came soon after the introduction of Acela service on the NEC.

Ticketing for rail is handled by the corporate travel agents exactly like airline tickets, following the lowest preferred fare rule for the proposed itinerary. No first class travel is allowed, but BC travel is allowed on US trains.

Having worked on the east coast in both government and nongovernment posts, the train is generally accepted on the NEC although our reservation system only has a handful of major stops (once I had a meeting in Wilmington and Amtrak to be booked manually, which added time and hassle).

That said, there have been no-BC/FC and even no-Acela (because it's technically BC) rules which are a pain when you're 1) looking at early morning trips when the Acela makes much more sense 2) dealing with the occasional Acela fare cheaper than the Regional. And while I'd love to travel overnight on the train for work, it would only cover coach, and that's not happening.

Once I had dinner with someone on the Silver Meteor heading to Florida for work and she needed a dining car receipt for 'meals enroute' reimbursement.

Yeah I had the problem of trying to use Sleeper for my business trip to Savannah from Trenton. My solution was to get the company to book me a Coach itinerary using the company credit card and after that I go in and upgrade it to Sleeper using a different private credit card. That worked fine since the company never became aware of the upgrade, and frankly they couldn't care less as long as they didn't have to pay the difference.

I often do this on airline tickets too, specially on long intercontinental flights where I go in and upgrade using miles and money to BC on a company booked Coach itinerary. Again they seem to not care as long as they don't have to pay any more than the original Coach fare. They used to get confused in the past, but they have gotten quite used to it now.

Good point, jis. I've done the same with flights--the upgrade is worth it to me in my own miles or money for a long trip, certain times of day, etc. Yet with the exception of redeeming AGR coupons, Amtrak seems to make upgrades cumbersome.

Rail and large corporations have never mixed well. My own story took place around 1980 when I worked for IBM. We were working on a program with a defense contractor on the West end of Long Island and I was with a team from IBM that regularly spent a week or two at a time working there. IBM paid for a rental car for us, and to break up the monotony of LI we were in the habit of driving into Manhattan a couple nights a week for better food and entertainment. We would park in Manhattan, which cost perhaps $20 in those days. We put all this on our expense accounts and were always compensated without any questions.

After a couple months of this, I had a great idea. I was getting tired of driving into NYC and searching for parking, etc. We were staying only a few miles from the subway stop by Shea Stadium. So on one trip I bought a roll of subway tokens (which were 15 cents each at the time) and we took the subway downtown and avoided the hassles and expense of driving and parking. It was great - easy and fast. I was very proud when I turned in my expense account with the subway tokens on it since I had saved IBM lots of $$. The subway tokens on the expense account were rejected. I challenged their decision and asked for a reason. Their reason was "We pay for a rental car and expect you to use it!"

Being a State Government employee, I've found that taking rail for business-related travel is a non-starter. I am being sent to San Diego on Sunday for required training next week, and the only two options available were to 1) drive or 2) fly Southwest. A company called TravelStore is the contract agent for scheduling official travel arrangements, and when I asked about Amtrak, I was flat turned down. I even pointed out that a State PCA code (finance accounting number) existed for using rail travel on official business. The agent put me on hold to ask her manager, then came back that it was not applicable to my department.

I live and work in the same state currently building a highly-public high speed rail system. Seems pretty hypocritical to me.

I'll be on the 1:15 Southwest direct flight to San Diego on Sunday. Oh well.

In *California*, you might consider escalating that through your bureaucracy, since they're clearly operating contrary to official state policy, which is to discourage unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions, and to reduce state expenses. (If it were a state like Arizona I wouldn't even try, but it's *California*, which actually subsidizes most of the Amtrak routes in the state. Every dollar going to Southwest could have gone to... Caltrans.) It's particularly ludicrous when you consider employees going from (for example) Los Angeles to San Diego.

On other side of coin . Is Amtrak worried that business class would steal riders from sleepers ? The above examples of business travel departments is terrible.

I often take Amtrak for work. I work in a government job in California. They love it. It's often cheaper. Not cost to check bags. Not taxes. No long term parking charges or shuttles to the airport (I live near the station.). I pay for the sleeper out of pocket or points. They pay coach. My meal per diem slightly subsidizes the sleeper costs. Three day advance booking warrants 10% off.

The coach but no sleeper rule is a sign of the times. Back when I worked for a living, sleeper tickets were about the same as "coach" airfare. I routinely took a sleeper from LA to STL and the accountants never questioned it. And I worked for an aircraft manufacturer.

I should've add that to do this, I am often giving up my Sunday to travel to be at a Monday morning meeting, whereas others would just take the first early Monday morning flight out. Returning, I get home like 1 am and then am back in the office at 8 am next day, whereas those who flew were home after dinner the night before.

Small price to pay for me and I enjoy the ride.

Well if you want to see the proper way to do it, just take a look at the Surfliner. It is used extensively by business people myself included. It is also much easier to expense train ticket than the whole mileage and gas etc.

Setting aside the business-side issues here, the big problem is frequency. I think it's fair to say that Ed Ellis has identified this. So has All Aboard Florida. Ironically, so has Bud Shuster (in his mention of supporting "fast, frequent, reliable" service)...and so, somewhat accidentally, has Scott Walker (the Hiawatha funding affair comes to mind). To some extent I think the Class Is understood this back in "the day" as well, at least on their more commuter/business-focused routes. There's some discussion to be had as to frequency levels needed (e.g. 3-5x daily versus "clock" service), but the point is generally there.

Interesting implication for federal policy: Presuming that we keep the National Network, what if the focus shifted to pushing states to ramp up frequency on "viable" current routes (with a long-term goal of extending such frequencies, mostly along existing longer-distance routes) instead of network "expansion"? I'd consider this a question of focus (e.g. we're not going to turn down re-adding a few routes to the system which pose glaring gaps) not a pure "either/or", but it's worth thinking about.

Several times I took the LSL from ALB to Toledo and then picked up my rental car to Ann Arbor.

Honestly, it was somewhat inconvenient (the trip back even more so).

But it was cheaper, and at least on the way out, I got about the same amount of sleep (getting off the train early in the morning vs getting up early to fly into Detroit) and it was far more civilized than flying.

The company didn't mind because it was cheaper. The HR guy thought it was weird, but that was fine by me.

Anderson said:

Setting aside the business-side issues here, the big problem is frequency. I think it's fair to say that Ed Ellis has identified this. So has All Aboard Florida. Ironically, so has Bud Shuster (in his mention of supporting "fast, frequent, reliable" service)...and so, somewhat accidentally, has Scott Walker (the Hiawatha funding affair comes to mind). To some extent I think the Class Is understood this back in "the day" as well, at least on their more commuter/business-focused routes. There's some discussion to be had as to frequency levels needed (e.g. 3-5x daily versus "clock" service), but the point is generally there.

Interesting implication for federal policy: Presuming that we keep the National Network, what if the focus shifted to pushing states to ramp up frequency on "viable" current routes (with a long-term goal of extending such frequencies, mostly along existing longer-distance routes) instead of network "expansion"? I'd consider this a question of focus (e.g. we're not going to turn down re-adding a few routes to the system which pose glaring gaps) not a pure "either/or", but it's worth thinking about.

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Well, you know my view. I'd like six trains daily on the Water Level Route from NYC via upstate NY to Chicago, running *on time*. Seems hard to get.

The solution is city pairs with travel times in the 2-6 hour range and frequent daily departures. Chicago-Milwaukee is an example, with 6 trains a day and 800,000 trips a year (I think; the fact that it serves an airport is a plus). Hopefully Chicago-Indianapolis will head in this direction. Others can suggest other likely pairs.

Going to 6 day trains NYP <> Buffalo one has to wonder if at present there is enough population base available to support the trains ?

The present weekday 12 trains per day NYP <> Albany has some interesting points.

NYP <> ALB may be able to increase its ridership if the route can get under or = 2:00. Unfortunately until Penn South is built those trains are limited in length. 2:00 calls for an average speed including stops of 70 MPH which will compare favorably to NEC trains. That will call for eliminating the slow sections. Start with NYP to Yonkers. Instead of 30 minutes cut it to 15 minutes but that will require the two main tracks from NYP - Spuyten Duyvill that will be needed for MNRR service to NYP. As well the swing bridge there will need a replacement no draw high bridge that will tie into a flyover of the MNRR tracks allowing full speed ( 90 MPH ? ) tie into the MNRR rail line toward ALB.

Then 4 tracking all the MNRR service north and full 2 MT onto Albany. Then the elimination of various slow sections to allow the 2:00 ALB service.

North and west of ALB will take a 3rd MT built / rebuilt for 110 MPH to go around all the CSX traffic. Then with the stops maybe get an average of 70 MPH NYP <> Buffalo gets ^;20 trip times..

Don't forget the HSR dual mode diesels needed that would probably require one on each end to make 110. + more rolling stock.

So got a bunch of money ?

There already are two main tracks from just outside NYP to just short of the Spuyten Duyvil bridge.