Empire Builder 3/22 (8 & 28) Cancelled?

montana mike said:

I would wager I have written my Congresspersons and Amtrak more than you over the years.

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That is hardly conclusive since I tend to RIDE the train with my representatives (well, up until last year anyway). Additionally, I RIDE with representatives of other states as well and they can be quite chatty.

As for the rest of your post, very good. I'm super glad to hear(read) that you are active and recognize that (in my opinion) it really seems as if they are actively DRIVING people away. I

However, you could also ask are they just trying to protect the little amount of allocated funds (that are not likely to be replenished) while attempting to maintain service...for others? They've done all sorts of policy changes and service/amenity cuts over the last few years and yet ridership continues to climb! Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one? Unfortunately, that is one of the ultimate problems with the system: Someone will sacrifice their service for the sake of others (ducks from Philly Amtrak Fan) and no one wants "their service impacted."

You and I don't balance the spreadsheet or directly solicit funds so it is easy to sit back and speculate and guess which one is happening.

However, I'd still advise anyone that is actually observing this thread to be proactive and start lobbying for your train...just in case.

I wrote to Mr. Anderson a few weeks ago regarding the Crescent that was canceled for a few inches of snow around the Roanoke area. I was scheduled to go to NOL from BHM. Ended up driving instead. Seems like the Empire Builder cancellation and Crescent cancellation are parallel. I havent gotten a reply yet. Dont know if he reads them or not, but it was sent.

The couple of replies to my letters addressed to senior Amtrak bureaucrats (like Mr. Anderson) were answered courtesy of an

unsigned form letter thanking me for my interest in Amtrak. I seriously doubt any of the senior management reads

correspondence addressed to them. But one never knows!

One of his polices was to use weather conditions or "mechanical" issues to cancel flights that were "light loads" (ie. not many pax booked on the flight) and rebook them on later flights. This of course made good economic sense for the airline, but it wreaked havoc on peoples' travel plans. I suspect these EBs may have suffered the same fate, since they were weekday runs in the off season and were lightly booked.

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if, and I say if, they were lightly booked, the fares from Chicago to Seattle might explain it.

PaulM said:

One of his polices was to use weather conditions or "mechanical" issues to cancel flights that were "light loads" (ie. not many pax booked on the flight) and rebook them on later flights. This of course made good economic sense for the airline, but it wreaked havoc on peoples' travel plans. I suspect these EBs may have suffered the same fate, since they were weekday runs in the off season and were lightly booked.

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if, and I say if, they were lightly booked, the fares from Chicago to Seattle might explain it.

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With this being the week before Easter, I wouldn't count on those numbers being representative of normal weeks. Just my opinion

montana mike said:

The couple of replies to my letters addressed to senior Amtrak bureaucrats (like Mr. Anderson) were answered courtesy of an

unsigned form letter thanking me for my interest in Amtrak. I seriously doubt any of the senior management reads

correspondence addressed to them. But one never knows!

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I know Mr. Boardman used to read them and he'd respond directly. I assume everyone is using this address, compliments of Google.(I'm not paying! )

PaulM said:

if, and I say if, they were lightly booked, the fares from Chicago to Seattle might explain it.

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If only someone had told us how many people were booked...

Thirdrail7 said:

As much as I don't like it, maybe Mr. Anderson thinks the resources are better spent on other services and is tired of paying through the nose for 87 passengers (of which half will want refunds or credits),

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I'm guessing he didn't make that number up.

Bob Dylan said:

We still miss having Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Senate from Texas!( out current Senators are the Grey Ghost and the Ghost of Joe McCarthy!)

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After several trips on Amtrak, I felt motivated to send to my Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, in the mid 1990s, a book about the glory days of US Rail travel in the 1950's, to encourage (her) good will about long distance train travel. I didn't mail it myself, I had Barnes & Noble send it.

I see that the EB 8(31) was an 1:57:00 late arriving in Edmonds, 17 miles from Seattle. I know there was rain in the area today.

As Ryan mentioned, it would be nice to know how many were booked on those 5 days in PaulM's AmSnag image but I know of no way to obtain that data. Does anyone know how?

AmtrakBlue stated "With this being the week before Easter, I wouldn't count on those numbers being representative of normal weeks." and that piqued my curiosity, so I modified PaulM's image and added 4 additional time periods following Easter. In addition, the buckets were converted from dollar figures to the numbers 1 (low bucket) through 5 (high bucket) plus zero (coach Saver fare) to make it easier to see whether or not those original numbers were representative of normal weeks:



This simplification should make comparison of pre- and post-Easter fares easier.

Q1: Which, if any, is the normal week? Or, perhaps better yet....

Q2: Is there such a thing as a normal week for Amtrak fares?

[Edited 9:15pm EDT to amend errors in chart]

Just an observation, but the last upper plains storm a few days ago was much worse, weatherwise, than the system that caused the cancellations of the 3/22 EBs according to my BNSF contacts in Montana (twice as much snow and stronger winds), yet both the EBs made it thru this latest event without any significant issues. My money is on the fact that this was a very good excuse to save some $$ by cancelling lightly loaded trains and rebooking folks. So be it if they are going to do this. But the fact that such a move can really disrupt travel plans (ie. at least a day's delay in travel and perhaps not the same accommodations), as opposed to many aircraft rebookings which usually (not always as was the case of the blizzards in the NE) can get the traveler to their intended destination later the same day.