807 car?

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ceo418

ceo418

Train Attendant
Joined
Sep 4, 2012
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43
Hello. I noticed while looking up Christmas travel that Amtrak has added a train number 807 to the Empire Builder between CHI and MSP in December. Is this a regular superliner car (I saw that there was no lower level seat option) or a smaller car that is simply added on during the busy season? Are there any differences in travel in this car?
 
The 807/808 cars are regular Superliner coaches (though perhaps the lack of lower-level seating means that it might be a coach-baggage). The only differences between this car and any other coaches on the Empire Builder are:

1) It's put on the end of the train, behind the Portland sleeper, and

2) It's filled with passengers traveling St. Paul-Chicago. Passengers going to Milwaukee, for instance, are directed to another car, even if they hold tickets for #807.
 
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807 is just extra capacity sold on the Builder between CHI and MSP during peak season. There's no way to specify in advance which car on the train you'll be in (when riding coach), as it's up to the conductors based on their loading plan.

I never really figured out why trains 807 and 808 really need to exist as such in the reservation system. Arrow is more than capable of handling different levels of capacity for different segments of a trip, so increasing capacity on train 7 CHI-MSP would accomplish the same thing. In fact, last summer that was what was done. However, the weather disruptions rendered that all nugatory as 7/8 wound up not running east of HAV most of the summer, and they wound up needing to reinstate 807/808 as CHI-MSP only service.
 
Trogdor said:
807 is just extra capacity sold on the Builder between CHI and MSP during peak season. There's no way to specify in advance which car on the train you'll be in (when riding coach), as it's up to the conductors based on their loading plan.

I never really figured out why trains 807 and 808 really need to exist as such in the reservation system. Arrow is more than capable of handling different levels of capacity for different segments of a trip, so increasing capacity on train 7 CHI-MSP would accomplish the same thing. In fact, last summer that was what was done. However, the weather disruptions rendered that all nugatory as 7/8 wound up not running east of HAV most of the summer, and they wound up needing to reinstate 807/808 as CHI-MSP only service.
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Are 321/322 (CHI-STL) the same, in that there is not really any need for them to exist?

Legacy of less-than-daily operation for the Empire Builder west of MSP and Texas Eagle south of STL, perhaps?
 
The difference with 321 and 322 is that those numbers have something to do with accounting for ticket revenue sharing with the State of Illinois as part of the CHI-STL corridor. Exactly what it has to do with that, I don't know. But that's what I'm told.
 
Trogdor said:
The difference with 321 and 322 is that those numbers have something to do with accounting for ticket revenue sharing with the State of Illinois as part of the CHI-STL corridor. Exactly what it has to do with that, I don't know. But that's what I'm told.
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In that case, it's likely 807/808 are being kept for the same reason, thanks to the PRIIA rules mandating 'uniformity'.
 
Trogdor said:
The difference with 321 and 322 is that those numbers have something to do with accounting for ticket revenue sharing with the State of Illinois as part of the CHI-STL corridor. Exactly what it has to do with that, I don't know. But that's what I'm told.
Click to expand...
Illinois does not subsidize the operation of the Texas Eagle. I thought the limitations of the ARROW reservation system was the reason for the creation of these "phantom" trains.
 
I just got off the EB #7 a little while ago. I was surprised to see an extra sleeper car 732.......I wouldn't have thought the last week in September would be this busy!
 
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MikefromCrete said:
Trogdor said:
The difference with 321 and 322 is that those numbers have something to do with accounting for ticket revenue sharing with the State of Illinois as part of the CHI-STL corridor. Exactly what it has to do with that, I don't know. But that's what I'm told.
Click to expand...
Illinois does not subsidize the operation of the Texas Eagle. I thought the limitations of the ARROW reservation system was the reason for the creation of these "phantom" trains.
Click to expand...
I know they don't subsidize the Eagle, but there's some deal regarding how the revenue of all CHI-STL trains are split. I really don't know the details on that.

There is no Arrow limitation that requires a phantom train number to cover local coach cars. There are numerous examples of cars not traveling the full length of a route (Adirondack, Zephyr when one sleeper only went to DEN, NEC trains where they reduce the for-sale inventory in order to reduce crew requirements on lighter segments, such as north of NHV on through trains from WAS, etc.), and most of the time, passengers would never even know anything was different because there's no extra train number to represent the added capacity over a shorter segment.
 
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