Amtrak Ticket Price Hike

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jim55

Service Attendant
Joined
Dec 14, 2006
Messages
136
I rode the Hiawatha from Chicago to Glenview yesterday and noticed a $.43 increase in the ticket price. Wonder what the CHI-MKE price jump amounted to? Does anyone know if this increase was system wide? The agent at GLN thought it started about 12 July. Jim
 
NER prices seem higher. I'm pricing trips from PHL to EWR and they are more expensive than my flight from PIT to PHL!
 
With price increases as outrageous as $.43 and/or $1.00, I'll bet that Amtrak won't even make money this year!
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At least with Amtrak, the fare you see is the fare you get, unless you have AAA or some other discount which makes it even better. Unlike airlines, there is no hidden vigorish, early check in, carry on baggage, checked baggage, fuel surcharge or other scam fees.
 
Tracktwentynine said:
Small increases like this are probably to keep up with inflation. A dollar doesn't buy what it used to.
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And never did! :eek: These are the "good old days when inflation is figured in, many threads comparing rail fares from the old days when a dollar was so hard to come by with todays fares! Today wins when it comes to Sleepers (meals included and for two or more )but Coach was a different story!
 
jim55 said:
I rode the Hiawatha from Chicago to Glenview yesterday and noticed a $.43 increase in the ticket price. Wonder what the CHI-MKE price jump amounted to? Does anyone know if this increase was system wide? The agent at GLN thought it started about 12 July. Jim
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Call out the cavalry!! Alert the guards!!

Come on, 43 cents!!! How did you even notice??? :blink:
 
The price of fuel is having it's effect. Thank God that passenger rail uses less fuel per passenger than any other form of transportation so the increased energy cost should not be as significant as with air travel. The airlines are getting killed with the high price of fuel and guess who's going to end up paying for it?
 
Ryan said:
The price of fuel is going down, so no. Nice try, though.
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Not for long if your gas prices dropped recently. There was a drop in oil prices a few weeks ago, but the spot prices for the 2 main oil benchmarks are up from July 1 to July 15 (source is eia.gov):

West Texas Intermediate crude: 7/1 = $93.70; 7/15 = $96.72

Brent North Sea Crude: 7/1 = $109.03, 7/15 = $117.72

The Brent spot price is regarded as a marker of the world price for oil and is more relevent to gas prices on the east coast and probably to the airlines. Amtrak and the airlines have fuel hedges which are keeping their cost down. But as the fuel hedges expire and if the oil prices stay up, the prices they pay for fuel are going to climb. The airlines won't hesitate for a second to add surcharges and raise ticket prices when they need to. Amtrak will have to raise prices as well, but fuel cost appears to be a much smaller part of their operating cost than it is for the airlines.

For fun, here are charts of the spot prices for WTI and Brent 1986 to date:

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=RWTC&f=D

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=RBRTE&f=D

Draw a long term trend line through the oil prices over the past 6 years. How much will a fuel inefficient 300 or 400 mile airline flight cost in another 6 years?
 
grounded flyboy said:
Compared some old tickets with tickets I have for tomorrow on the Illini & Saluki... these corridor prices are still the same, glad to report.
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Same with the Illinois Zephyr and Carl Sandburg, at least for the next 30 days. But an awful lot of high bucket trains.
 
PaulM said:
grounded flyboy said:
Compared some old tickets with tickets I have for tomorrow on the Illini & Saluki... these corridor prices are still the same, glad to report.
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Same with the Illinois Zephyr and Carl Sandburg, at least for the next 30 days. But an awful lot of high bucket trains.
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The high bucket prices that seem so prevelant these days have more to with demand than the price of fuel.
 
The Davy Crockett said:
PaulM said:
grounded flyboy said:
Compared some old tickets with tickets I have for tomorrow on the Illini & Saluki... these corridor prices are still the same, glad to report.
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Same with the Illinois Zephyr and Carl Sandburg, at least for the next 30 days. But an awful lot of high bucket trains.
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The high bucket prices that seem so prevelant these days have more to with demand than the price of fuel.
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I'm sure you are right. But theoretically, Amtrak could raise prices, for whatever reason, by reducing the number of seats in the two lower buckets.

In this case for the next 6 days, 1 of the trains is sold out, 9 at high bucket ($69) and 2 at low bucket ($26). At this rate Amtrak is going to be owing Illinois money. :blink:
 
PaulM said:
... theoretically, Amtrak could raise prices, for whatever reason, by reducing the number of seats in the two lower buckets.
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They could. Maybe they have! :huh: Like companies that don't 'raise prices' but shrink the quantity per package. :eek:hboy:
 
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jimhudson said:
Ryan said:
The price of fuel is going down, so no. Nice try, though.
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Went up 10c a gallon today down here Ryan, are you Yankees getting a break from Exxon/Mobil? :eek:
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Must be! Here are my prices (I keep a log):

gasprice.PNG


Regardless, Davy Crockett nailed it - demand has far more to do with it, and while increased gas prices may be a contributing factor, fares aren't directly correlated to fuel prices.
 
Last year when I rode the SWC from Newton to Chicago on choach it was 90 dollars. I just did a lookup on the Amtrak site and the price had went up to $180.
 
amtkstn said:
Last year when I rode the SWC from Newton to Chicago on choach it was 90 dollars. I just did a lookup on the Amtrak site and the price had went up to $180.
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This is because of 'bucket' pricing. The more full the train gets, the higher the price. Look at several other dates in the end of January, February, March or April of 2012 and see what prices you get.
 

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