Business Class Coming to Auto Train Feb 1, 2016

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How about some lie flat seats and online seat selection like airlines provide? That would get my attention more than water bottles and newspapers.
That would be really nice. But as discussed before the price point of such would likely be not too much less than that of a roomette since the floor area required per passenger is not too different between the two. The one advantage would be the ability to sell singles which is impossible in roomettes. This is what would allow single prices to be lower than in roomettes, and I'd love it, as apparently would you.
 
After the Coast Starlight apparently successful experiment with BC, I would have thought the Texas Eagle with its CHI-STL and Dallas/FTW to Austin & San Antonio daytime city pairs
If Illinois ever gets its bilevels, I would think Amtrak should buy a couple of *new* business class cars for the Texas Eagle to provide a consistent offering on CHI-STL.

or the Silver Star with its NEC to Richmond & Raleigh and Tampa to southern Florida daytime city pairs would have been among the next LD trains to get BC. Or the LSL. Although for the eastern trains, the limited number of Amfleet I BC-lounge cafe cars is a constraint.
Time to order more single-level cars. :) How about an order with a mix of-- Viewliner BC/cafe half-and-halfs. If BC is in the newest cars, it'll help sell BC tickets, so there should be a commercial case for it.

-- Viewliner full BC cars (maybe BC / cab cars? Most of the trains which want cab cars should have a high BC demand)

-- and Viewliner full glasstop cafe-lounge-obs cars? We know the eastern fleet needs improved cafe-lounge-obs cars; Amtrak says the cafes are profitable so it should be financially justifiable.

The Amfleets can be converted to more coaches...
 
Is Priority Boarding, for you or for your car?

If for you, given a specific car is reserved for you, I don't see the worth as a perk. You'll be boarding with only your fellow BC passengers.
I believe the priority boarding refers to boarding the train at 2:30pm with sleeping car passengers before coach passengers. Priority Vehicle offloading is still a separately paid for service.
 
If Illinois ever gets its bilevels, I would think Amtrak should buy a couple of *new* business class cars for the Texas Eagle to provide a consistent offering on CHI-STL.
or the Silver Star with its NEC to Richmond & Raleigh and Tampa to southern Florida daytime city pairs would have been among the next LD trains to get BC. Or the LSL. Although for the eastern trains, the limited number of Amfleet I BC-lounge cafe cars is a constraint.
Time to order more single-level cars. :) How about an order with a mix of-- Viewliner BC/cafe half-and-halfs. If BC is in the newest cars, it'll help sell BC tickets, so there should be a commercial case for it.

-- Viewliner full BC cars (maybe BC / cab cars?...

-- and Viewliner full glasstop cafe-lounge-obs cars? We know the eastern fleet needs improved cafe-lounge-obs cars; Amtrak says the cafes are profitable so it should be financially justifiable.

The Amfleets can be converted to more coaches...
OK. Let's do it. But I'm not solid sure myself that Amtrak has the funds for the final payments on the Viewliners that it's got coming, or for rehabs on the V-Is. Your diner-less Star may be helping with the loose change needed to pay CAF. LOL.

Anyway, I'm sure Amtrak could find lawyers to let it order bag cars, bag/dorms, diners, and sleepers under the expired option for 70 more cars from CAF. But I'm afraid that to get cafe/lounge/observation cars, cafe/BC cars, full BC cars, etc. it would have to go out to bid in a lengthy and delay-prone process. Well, for a small order like this there might be only one bidder.
 
I'm absolutely sure that Amtrak has the funds for the current Viewliner order. There's a lot of competing priorities for capital funding, and it's a question of which one gets delayed: at the moment, I'm pretty sure the IT upgrades are getting delayed. Those ate billions of dollars for years and years and Amtrak seems to be pausing to reassess the situation. Meanwhile Amtrak is committing to the Chicago Union Station upgrades. When that is done, there will be enough money around to buy some more cars: remember the Penn Station mortgage is about to be retired!
 
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I have been told this service did begin as of Monday, February 1, but have heard nothing about it since. Many questions remain unanswered in my mind at this point, and I hope to find out more in the next few days. There are also some new developments in the area of onboard service supervision on that train, and I hope to learn more about this as well.

Tom
 
a) I though the Auto Train was at a hard car limit? I wonder how this will be done...

b) With Wi-Fi for all and free meals for all already on the Auto Train, who is the intended market for this? It's not like there's a day corridor market on this non-stop overnight train...
There is a hard 50 car limit imposed by CSX for passenger cars and auto racks combined. For the purposes of head end power capabilities, 16 cars was the limit. I understand Auto Train reconfigured the Superliners in their pool to use LED lighting which reduced the load enough to permit additional cars. I'm not sure what the new max limit is, but they now operate 17 Superliners on peak days.
The 50 car "hard limit" was lifted in tandem with the LED conversion almost a year ago.
Yes, but I was referencing CSX's 50 car limit for Auto Train which, AFAIK, still stands.
And as I stated, CSX no longer imposes a 50 car limit. There is a limit but it is no longer 50 cars.
Do you happen to know what the new limit is, or at least, is it significantly greater than 50 cars now? In other words, could a few more cars potentially be added to the train in the future?
 
Does anyone know what Business Class seating actually is today on the Auto Train? How many are sold on each trip? I have seen old posts indicating it a separate car and another post that indicated it was lower level seating in one (or more) designated cars. If I remember correctly, there are only 6 pairs of coach seats on the lower level of a Superliner.

My wife wants to try the Auto Train heading south later this month. She wants to maximize the chance of having a seat to herself. Given this should be a low demand time, I am thinking there is a good chance she will have her own seat with no one next to her in coach. But if Business Class seating is limited, she may have a greater chance of having a seatmate. Depending on when she goes, she may get a roomette anyway, but it would be nice to know the options.
 
Does anyone know what Business Class seating actually is today on the Auto Train? How many are sold on each trip? I have seen old posts indicating it a separate car and another post that indicated it was lower level seating in one (or more) designated cars. If I remember correctly, there are only 6 pairs of coach seats on the lower level of a Superliner.

My wife wants to try the Auto Train heading south later this month. She wants to maximize the chance of having a seat to herself. Given this should be a low demand time, I am thinking there is a good chance she will have her own seat with no one next to her in coach. But if Business Class seating is limited, she may have a greater chance of having a seatmate. Depending on when she goes, she may get a roomette anyway, but it would be nice to know the options.
It is both levels of an entire car. The levels are not assigned so if prefer downstairs, the earlier you check in, the better as there are only 10 seats in the lower level. Otherwise, the entire upper level is available.
 
Not enough people using it? Just about every comment on LD business class includes a statement similar to "there's plenty of space to spread out since there aren't many passengers."
 
Not enough people using it? Just about every comment on LD business class includes a statement similar to "there's plenty of space to spread out since there aren't many passengers."
According to a post on Trainorders, business class will cease on May 1 for both the Autotrain and the Crescent. Ending BC on those trains was a recommendation from a product development and revenue management review team. Sounds like the BC option did not sell enough seats to support the costs of offering it.
 
Not enough people using it? Just about every comment on LD business class includes a statement similar to "there's plenty of space to spread out since there aren't many passengers."
Yeah, that seems to basically be the whole point of business class on almost every LD. It's never a good thing when the only point of a service is for it to not sell well. In fact, 'Flexible' fares have a slightly better refund policy than business class. Literally making it better in every way to book flexible coach than to book BC on the Crescent.
 
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