How did Amtrak shake out an extra sleeper for the Cardinal?

What it says on the tin: The Cardinal posted a 90% spike in sleeper ridership in August and I heard that it was running with an extra sleeper for the month (possibly as a trial balloon for adding one with the Viewliner II order). Anyone know where the extra equipment came from? Per-train sleeper ridership actually exceeded the Silver Star for the month as far as I can tell (about 47.8/train for the Cardinal vs. 43.9/train for the Star).

(For those of you up for a bit of a chuckle, the Sleeper's ridership skyrocketed with the extra capacity. Coach ridership was down, just like everyone else's...but that was almost universal on the LD trains aside from the Builder, which is a rolling disaster right now, the Eagle due to construction, and the Cap due to a mix of bad OTP and lost connections.)

39 to 41 (if I counted correctly) daily active cars out of 50 probably was an easy adjustment. But I wouldn't see anyone else being able to get additional cars until the Viewliner IIs are put into revenue service

The 80% available for equipment is just a number.

Happen for the sixth Empire Builder set, the extra two coachs on the Auto Train, and now for the second sleeping car on the Cardinal.

Just a bit arm twisting and bam your pax number go up.

Yup, tighten up some maintenance cycle and reduce reliability a little by removing protect cars from here and there, and you suddenly have a few additional cars to play with.

The 90% increase in sleeper ridership for the Cardinal may be an impressive stat for a talking point but lets not forget that this train has no diner but a glorified café car to feed everyone. Pity the poor soul (Chef/server) in the "diner lite" that has to take orders, set the table, cook the food, serve the food and clean up. Last we rode the Cardinal the SCA helped out with the table service. Maybe this is the new norm for keeping employees at a minimal level. After all bureaucrat Boardman promised to make the dining cars profitable despite the fact that that this feat has never been accomplished in all of railroading history.Sure just cut more employees work what you have to the bone and there's the higher profit! Ah yes PROFIT what a glorious word!!!!!.

I know this may be an unpopular position, but if the choice becomes one between getting network connectivity or having full Dining Car service, at this point I'd choose network connectivity. In other words, if there was a situation where a train could be started connecting some significant new city pairs, but with only Diner Lite for the time being, or not start the service at all because there is no full diner service, I'd opt for starting the new train rather than forgoing it waiting for full dining service.

So for example, if a hypothetical Chicago - Atlanta service materialized but it had only Diner Lite, I'd say, go for it without waiting for full dining service to become available. I see the Cardinal at present in the same light. Would you rather that the Cardinal did not run at all for the want of full dining service?

It sounds like a perfectly reasonable position to me.

I'd also expect that the Cardinal to get a real diner as soon as one is available.

I would say on average 60 coach pax board 50 & 51 here in cvs most trips - tends to be heavier going north.

What this sudden jump with sleeper ridership happening with the sudden jump in available sleeper space really means is that their had been an unfulfilled demand on this route. This begs the question of how much of the long distance ridership on Amtrak is capped by lack of capacity in other markets?

How much could capacity be increased by such simple acts as turning some equipment short? for example, turn some of the City of New Orleans equipment at Memphis and some of the Crescent equipment at Atlanta? For tne entire operation of both roads (ICRR and Southern) that was standard practice based on demographics and ridership. There is no point in spending the fuel and putting the wear and tear on the equipment hauling it empth a few hundred miles simply to avoid a switching move.

Atlanta apparently has certain logistical problems, partly of NS's creation apparently. Also, the additional revenues have to be balanced against the need for additional staff and equipment in Atlanta to do the shuffle. I don't know the details of what that might be,

The difference between the past and now is that the incremental staff cost was close to zero since someone was probably there anyway for other reasons who could be tapped. Now it takes placing an additional person who would probably not be needed basent the need to do car shuffle.

That is why the PIP for the through cars between the Cap and the Pennsy at Pittsburgh was carefully structured so that everything could be done by the road staff on the Cap and the Pennsy.

George Harris said:

What this sudden jump with sleeper ridership happening with the sudden jump in available sleeper space really means is that their had been an unfulfilled demand on this route. This begs the question of how much of the long distance ridership on Amtrak is capped by lack of capacity in other markets?

How much could capacity be increased by such simple acts as turning some equipment short? for example, turn some of the City of New Orleans equipment at Memphis and some of the Crescent equipment at Atlanta? For tne entire operation of both roads (ICRR and Southern) that was standard practice based on demographics and ridership. There is no point in spending the fuel and putting the wear and tear on the equipment hauling it empth a few hundred miles simply to avoid a switching move.

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One would think with modern computer systems the demand could easily be calculated and projections done to the effect that say, we need to add four corridor trains per day between Carbondale and Memphis, for instance, or Syracuse and Cleveland. Obviously adding trains isn't that simple, but it shouldn't be that add to accurately predict where the ridership is. The added demand is pretty patently obvious, at least to me.

Predict? Yes. Accurately? Maybe. The usual problem one faces is how do you validate the model that you are using to predict. Of late predilections have tended to be lower than the reality. Afterall the predictions are only as good as the models used, and models just don;t fall out of the sky in perfect form. Some of the inputs into the model like economic condition and elasticity relative to that also gets mired in politics, and only such values as are aligned with the world view of the one funding the prediction tends to get used thus possibly distorting the results.

Metra Electric Guest said:

George Harris said:

What this sudden jump with sleeper ridership happening with the sudden jump in available sleeper space really means is that their had been an unfulfilled demand on this route. This begs the question of how much of the long distance ridership on Amtrak is capped by lack of capacity in other markets?

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Click to expand...

One would think with modern computer systems the demand could easily be calculated and projections done to the effect that say, we need to add four corridor trains per day between Carbondale and Memphis, for instance, or Syracuse and Cleveland. Obviously adding trains isn't that simple, but it shouldn't be that [hard] to accurately predict where the ridership is. The added demand is pretty patently obvious, at least to me.

Click to expand...

We agree that there pent-up demand for passenger rail. And Amtrak can do a pretty good job of estimating potential ridership. That's the easy part.

Caveats:

There's no spare equipment. Wonderful to find another coach for the Auto Train, add a sleeper to the Cardinal, run a late evening Acela. But equipment for another train, meaning two trains, one each way, there's nothing like that in sight. Order 600 single-level cars as per the Fleet Renewal Plan -- and that'll cost you close to $3 Billion -- then you can talk adding a frequency, or even a new train on a new route.

There's precious little spare capacity on the freight lines. After the CAF order provides enuff sleepers and diners, Amtrak could take the Cardinal and the Sunset Ltd daily. The freight hosts, however, will run their simulations and show how the added trains will mess things up unless new sidings are added, better signaling installed, etc. Those menu prices will cause loss of appetite at Amtrak and in Congress.

States are better at getting concessions from the freights, because they usually have carrots and sticks to aid the conversation. Virginia, for example, has dedicated money to improve freight rail routes, especially those serving its ports. I believe some or all of the Amtrak Virginia routes -- D.C.-Newport News, -Norfolk, -Richmond, -Lynchburg, and the extension to Roanoke -- benefited from funds that helped freight operations as well as passenger trains. Chicago's massive CREATE project has dozens of rail-and-road improvements that intermingle freight and passenger rail upgrades. There the freight lins invest along with the State of Illinois, the Stimulus, and other public sources.

And note that if anything, Amtrak will underestimate expected passengers. It won't get any heat if the Lynchburger grabs so many passengers that it shows an operating surplus after Amtrak predicted that a state subsidy would be needed. But if it overestimates the expected passenger counts, then it's hell to pay if the numbers aren't met immediately. So all forecasts in the PRIIA studies are low-balled, I promise you.

Bottom line: Amtrak knows what all it could do with plenty of money to do it. It's not ridership forecasts holding up the works, it's the lack of cash money.

I would guess a large chunk of the uptick in demand from sleeper pax may be NYP-CHI people who don't want to deal with the LSL delays. I don't know if sleeper reservations are down on the LSL for full route sleeper pax, but I would guess they are. The Cardinal is an extra seven hours, but with some of the delays on the LSL reaching 8+ hours, the Cardinal might make more sense. Even if the actual travel would be longer, at least you know reliably when you will arrive. Over the past month, the Cardinal has arrived an average of four minutes early, while the LSL has arrived an average of 4 hrs 26 minutes late.

WoodyinNYC said:

Metra Electric Guest said:

George Harris said:

What this sudden jump with sleeper ridership happening with the sudden jump in available sleeper space really means is that their had been an unfulfilled demand on this route. This begs the question of how much of the long distance ridership on Amtrak is capped by lack of capacity in other markets?

...

Click to expand...

One would think with modern computer systems the demand could easily be calculated and projections done to the effect that say, we need to add four corridor trains per day between Carbondale and Memphis, for instance, or Syracuse and Cleveland. Obviously adding trains isn't that simple, but it shouldn't be that [hard] to accurately predict where the ridership is. The added demand is pretty patently obvious, at least to me.

Click to expand...

We agree that there pent-up demand for passenger rail. And Amtrak can do a pretty good job of estimating potential ridership. That's the easy part.

Caveats:

There's no spare equipment. Wonderful to find another coach for the Auto Train, add a sleeper to the Cardinal, run a late evening Acela. But equipment for another train, meaning two trains, one each way, there's nothing like that in sight. Order 600 single-level cars as per the Fleet Renewal Plan -- and that'll cost you close to $3 Billion -- then you can talk adding a frequency, or even a new train on a new route.

There's precious little spare capacity on the freight lines. After the CAF order provides enuff sleepers and diners, Amtrak could take the Cardinal and the Sunset Ltd daily. The freight hosts, however, will run their simulations and show how the added trains will mess things up unless new sidings are added, better signaling installed, etc. Those menu prices will cause loss of appetite at Amtrak and in Congress.

States are better at getting concessions from the freights, because they usually have carrots and sticks to aid the conversation. Virginia, for example, has dedicated money to improve freight rail routes, especially those serving its ports. I believe some or all of the Amtrak Virginia routes -- D.C.-Newport News, -Norfolk, -Richmond, -Lynchburg, and the extension to Roanoke -- benefited from funds that helped freight operations as well as passenger trains. Chicago's massive CREATE project has dozens of rail-and-road improvements that intermingle freight and passenger rail upgrades. There the freight lins invest along with the State of Illinois, the Stimulus, and other public sources.

And note that if anything, Amtrak will underestimate expected passengers. It won't get any heat if the Lynchburger grabs so many passengers that it shows an operating surplus after Amtrak predicted that a state subsidy would be needed. But if it overestimates the expected passenger counts, then it's hell to pay if the numbers aren't met immediately. So all forecasts in the PRIIA studies are low-balled, I promise you.

Bottom line: Amtrak knows what all it could do with plenty of money to do it. It's not ridership forecasts holding up the works, it's the lack of cash money.

Click to expand...

Agreed - Illinois is adding two new routes next year and improving speeds for example.

Money is the root of the lack of service.

I'm going to take an unpopular position, but Amtrak could probably do a lot to deal with capacity jams like the Cardinal's if they picked out some packed routes/segments and worked out an agreement with a third-party operator to regularly provide equipment that was set to a given standard. There's no lack of equipment out there (even if it would have to be refurbished), and on some routes (the LSL, Cap, etc. come to mind) you could probably fill a reasonable amount of equipment on a regular basis.

This is probably my biggest beef with Amtrak at the moment...if nothing else, filling such a service and agreeing to a multi-year contract...say,five years so long as certain targets were met...that would be long enough to cover the time until a supplemental order could be worked up. I'm particularly irked by this because if you look at the MPRs, sleeper ridership is steady-to-up on most routes that aren't dealing with catastrophic disruptions...compared with a significant slide in coach ridership.

Note that, Viewliner IIs notwithstanding (and in all fairness, that is a decent "notwithstanding") the lack of additional capacity, particularly sleeper capacity, is a major problem for Amtrak...but it's also uneconomical to order just a handful (which they can demonstrate demand for) and not easy to order a large batch (which they could probably use but would take flak for buying).

George Harris said:

How much could capacity be increased by such simple acts as turning some equipment short? for example, turn some of the City of New Orleans equipment at Memphis and some of the Crescent equipment at Atlanta? For tne entire operation of both roads (ICRR and Southern) that was standard practice based on demographics and ridership. There is no point in spending the fuel and putting the wear and tear on the equipment hauling it empth a few hundred miles simply to avoid a switching move.

Click to expand...

The PIP report for the Crescent discussed the benefits of turning equipment around at Atlanta because it is a long day trip from Atlanta to New Orleans. Amtrak would like to do it, but it is not feasible to do so at the current Atlanta station stop. The plans for the proposed new Atlanta station included a storage track that could used for dropping off cars and then adding them to the northbound Crescent. But I have not read anything about the status of the proposed new Atlanta station in some time since the state selected a developer for the site.

As for the CONO, according to the 2012 PIP report, the top city pairs for the CONO are MEM-NOL (12%), Jackson-NOL(10%), CHI-NOL(10%), then CHI-MEM (9%). With Memphis to New Orleans being the day time leg, much of that ridership are presumably coach passengers. But with strong numbers for trips between the 3 major cities on the route, does not appear to be much benefit to dropping off a sleeper at MEM.

The 2012 PIP is rather sparse on proposed improvements to the CONO discussing only adding a flag stop at Marks, MS; 2 Thruway buses; and breaking the CONO - TE equipment shuffle for improved maintenance. That was it. With respectable On-Time Performance of 80% so far in FY2014 and steady ridership growth over the past 7 years until a slump for the FY to date (which may be mostly due to the EB, CZ, CL, LSL, Chicago problems), the CONO may be the steady LD train where little is to be gained by messing with it. The CONO will benefit from the CREATE Grand Crossing project (when/if it gets built), any track improvements for the Chicago-Carbondale corridor IL pays for, and maybe someday a CHI-MEM corridor service. But the CONO is the passive ride-along in any of those efforts.

As for the Cardinal, the experiment, if that is what it is, with 2 sleeper cars appears to have demonstrated that there is enough demand to support it. If the Indiana support for the Hoosier State does not continue and the HS stops running, I would not be surprised if Amtrak makes a move for a daily Cardinal once most of the new Viewliners have been delivered and Buckingham Branch has spent much of the funding provided by Virginia for track, signal upgrades and a new siding.

I wonder how much of the spike in Cardinal's sleeper ridership are from folks like me, who are taking a one-way joyride this weekend in order to see some fall color? If there are more than a few of us, then I would expect the ridership to decrease as the seasons change.

Living near Cincinnati, the Cardinal ridership in whatever class would be improved if the schedule provided a more reasonable embark and disembark time in the Queen City.

Even allowing long term parking at Union Station in Cincinnati would encourage me to take the Cardinal. But, who wants to ask a friend or relative to take them to the city or to pick them up during the middle of the night?

afigg said:

As for the CONO, according to the 2012 PIP report, the top city pairs for the CONO are MEM-NOL (12%), Jackson-NOL(10%), CHI-NOL(10%), then CHI-MEM (9%). With Memphis to New Orleans being the day time leg, much of that ridership are presumably coach passengers. But with strong numbers for trips between the 3 major cities on the route, does not appear to be much benefit to dropping off a sleeper at MEM.

The 2012 PIP is rather sparse on proposed improvements to the CONO discussing only adding a flag stop at Marks, MS; 2 Thruway buses; and breaking the CONO - TE equipment shuffle for improved maintenance. That was it. With respectable On-Time Performance of 80% so far in FY2014 and steady ridership growth over the past 7 years until a slump for the FY to date (which may be mostly due to the EB, CZ, CL, LSL, Chicago problems), the CONO may be the steady LD train where little is to be gained by messing with it. The CONO will benefit from the CREATE Grand Crossing project (when/if it gets built), any track improvements for the Chicago-Carbondale corridor IL pays for, and maybe someday a CHI-MEM corridor service. But the CONO is the passive ride-along in any of those efforts.

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Yes, I had heard about the track issue concernign turning equipment for the Crescent.

Concerning the CONO: The loading proportions are a surprise to me. In the past passenger loadings south of Memphis were considerably less than those north of it. Although some of us remember the pre-Amtrak, in fact well before that as in late 50's early 60's very fast ICRR, today's CONO run time is not shabby compared to that of Amtrak's long distance trains as a whole. Yes, it would make good sense to carry on south of Carbondale so as to have a Chicago-Memphis day train; it is unlikely that Tennessee or Illinois will step up to the plate and certain that Kentucky will not. For reasons not entirely clear, West Tennessee has always been somewhat of a step child in state politics. Most likely it is because East Tennessee has the tourists and Middle Tennessee has the state capital so it is more visible to the politicians regardless of what part of the state they are supposed to be representing. For those form elsewhere: Why do you think the Tennessee state flag has three stars? It is because it is divided into three Grand Divisions" and a number of things are by law and by state constitution divided by divisions, not just by counties. Boundaries between divisions are the Tennessee River between West and Middle and time zone boundary / Walden Ridge between Middle and East. After Middle Tennessee gets a state supported train then there might be a chance for a Memphis to Carbondale/Chicago train.

While we are talking additonal trains trains serving Memphis, how about going west? Turn the day train to/from Chicago onto the UP there and go on to Dallas Ft. Worth and maybe elsewhere in Texas like the long gone MoPac Texas Eagle.

There was the Crescent Star idea floating around having noticed that the loading south of Atlanta is much lower. The idea was to split the train at Meridian and have a section proceed to Dallas from there. That would of course cross the path of the CONO.

Orie said:

I would guess a large chunk of the uptick in demand from sleeper pax may be NYP-CHI people who don't want to deal with the LSL delays. I don't know if sleeper reservations are down on the LSL for full route sleeper pax, but I would guess they are. The Cardinal is an extra seven hours, but with some of the delays on the LSL reaching 8+ hours, the Cardinal might make more sense. Even if the actual travel would be longer, at least you know reliably when you will arrive. Over the past month, the Cardinal has arrived an average of four minutes early, while the LSL has arrived an average of 4 hrs 26 minutes late.

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49(5) - sleepers were sold out NYP- CHI

WindyCityTexan said:

I wonder how much of the spike in Cardinal's sleeper ridership are from folks like me, who are taking a one-way joyride this weekend in order to see some fall color? If there are more than a few of us, then I would expect the ridership to decrease as the seasons change.

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The spike was in August, actually. That was the stunner.

AmtrakBlue said:

Orie said:

I would guess a large chunk of the uptick in demand from sleeper pax may be NYP-CHI people who don't want to deal with the LSL delays. I don't know if sleeper reservations are down on the LSL for full route sleeper pax, but I would guess they are. The Cardinal is an extra seven hours, but with some of the delays on the LSL reaching 8+ hours, the Cardinal might make more sense. Even if the actual travel would be longer, at least you know reliably when you will arrive. Over the past month, the Cardinal has arrived an average of four minutes early, while the LSL has arrived an average of 4 hrs 26 minutes late.

Click to expand...

49(5) - sleepers were sold out NYP- CHI

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In that case nevermind

Anderson said:

WindyCityTexan said:

I wonder how much of the spike in Cardinal's sleeper ridership are from folks like me, who are taking a one-way joyride this weekend in order to see some fall color? If there are more than a few of us, then I would expect the ridership to decrease as the seasons change.

Click to expand...

The spike was in August, actually. That was the stunner.

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That was the question that crossed my mind, too. It will be interesting to see if it is sustainable. Then, if Buckingham Branch can cooperate (along with the other three hosts on 6 segments), what making this a daily train would do...

Heck - if they could only somehow negotiate a daily service in October, it would be worthwhile.