Auto Train Coach Food Being Removed 1/14/2020?

[Thirdrail7]

If they add higher revenue sleeping cars, lower the costs of delivering the coach product ( even though you are lowering the price), you may have a situation like the Star: an attraction to coach ridership due to the price.

 

[toddinde]

The Interstate Commerce Commission had jurisdiction over the interstate trains. Railroads played a lot of games with that.

 

[lordsigma]

If they add higher revenue sleeping cars, lower the costs of delivering the coach product ( even though you are lowering the price), you may have a situation like the Star: an attraction to coach ridership due to the price.

I agree I am not convinced they are wanting to kill the auto train. Remember that they are leaving the traditional dining on this train for sleeper passengers. I think the idea is exactly that. To maximize the sleeper passenger revenue and to lower the cost of providing the coach service (and woo coach riders with lower cost tickets.) if they provide some sort of acceptable options in the cafe car along with the food trucks I don’t see there being a huge drop. I think the goal is to try to move the auto train into black territory by cutting coach costs and maximizing sleeper revenue.

They may very well want to cut/truncate/modify some of the long distance routes, but I don’t think the auto train is one of them.

 

[railiner]

First of all the railroads never went in front of Congress to remove trains. Railroads went before the state agency that the individual railroad operated its train through to get a train discontinued.

I recall the railroads petitioning the Interstate Commerce Commission to discontinue trains. But I also recall certain states accepting or rejecting such requests within their state...not sure how the law works. There were cases where an interstate train that was allowed to discontinue in a certain state, but not adjacent ones, would actually deadhead thru the discontinued state (kick off passengers), for operational convenience, where the equipment or crews were based...
I had thought that ICC authority superseded state regulatory authority, but it is still not clear to me...

 

[Anderson]

The Auto Train accounts for an inordinate chunk of the F&B "losses":
https://amtrakoig.gov/sites/default/files/reports/oig-a-2014-001.pdf

Now, some of that is bad accounting that doesn't even seem to have fully transferred revenue over, and the train's fiscal situation has always been different... but at least on paper the Auto Train is one of the "bad" trains for F&B losses, even on a per-passenger basis.

 

[erierail]

I recall the railroads petitioning the Interstate Commerce Commission to discontinue trains. But I also recall certain states accepting or rejecting such requests within their state...not sure how the law works. There were cases where an interstate train that was allowed to discontinue in a certain state, but not adjacent ones, would actually deadhead thru the discontinued state (kick off passengers), for operational convenience, where the equipment or crews were based...
I had thought that ICC authority superseded state regulatory authority, but it is still not clear to me...

I believe railroads were originally chartered by individual states, and they regulated individual carriers within thier state lines. The icc regulated trains crossing state lines.

 

[dogbert617]

So we have identified a new need - a rideshare network for non-driving people that want to sign on as additional passengers with drivers that are going to travel on Auto Train but who will have empty space in their vehicle. They will have to do that prior to reservations being made, I think, because I believe all pax have to be included in the reservation, but it should be doable, and it should be attractive to the driver since it would lower their overall cost. For pax riding in coach, that should work. Is it possible for a large pax count in one vehicle (like a three-row minivan) to do partly sleeper and partiy coach? I've not traveled on A-T so I don't know.

I love this idea, 'and will sign up for your newsletter!' (a la a certain past episode from The Simpsons long ago) And yep such an idea would work well, since taking on another passenger who doesn't own a car but wants to ride the AT, which for sure would lower the costs for everyone in that group of people in a car!

 

[lordsigma]

The Auto Train accounts for an inordinate chunk of the F&B "losses":
https://amtrakoig.gov/sites/default/files/reports/oig-a-2014-001.pdf

Now, some of that is bad accounting that doesn't even seem to have fully transferred revenue over, and the train's fiscal situation has always been different... but at least on paper the Auto Train is one of the "bad" trains for F&B losses, even on a per-passenger basis.

That pretty much explains why they’re doing it. Based on numbers, it appears Amtrak could get the auto train into black territory simply by reducing the commissary costs. The complimentary coach dining is undoubtedly a key reason for that high loss number on that route.

 

[Palmland]

I too wonder if Amtrak is seeing if this change will put Auto-train in the black, as mentioned above. If so, could this be their vision for other LD routes with similar demand eg. An 18 hour overnight trip with large populations at both ends and, importantly, a need to have the family car with you. Could CZ or SWC morph into the Chicago area to Colorado’s front range, or perhaps the Bay Area to Portland or Seattle.

From our travels this year, the Auto-Train was a far better experience than the SWC or Sunset.

 

[Trogdor]

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned on here is that the Auto Train’s consist is limited by the HEP capacity. The explanation I’ve heard from the inside is that Amtrak wants to add sleeper capacity to increase revenue, but the trade off is either remove a coach car during peak season, which offsets the revenue gains, or remove a coach diner. But with the latter choice, the remaining food service cars then wouldn’t have the capacity to serve a full train. So, you drop the coach meals, save a bunch of costs in the process, and still benefit from the added sleeper revenue.

The other explanation I’ve heard is that Richard Anderson is a three-headed demon-monster that feasts on the souls of sugar plum fairies.

 

[JustOnce]

Did a sleeper get added when the coach diner was dropped? I know a "full" AT is around 17 Superliners and 33-34 autoracks and that hasn't changed after October 1. I frequently watch the Ashland rail cam whose live chat has made a game out of guessing the number of locos/Superliners/racks in the consist. However, I can't see the individual cars closely enough to count sleepers vs coaches.

 

[Anderson]

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned on here is that the Auto Train’s consist is limited by the HEP capacity. The explanation I’ve heard from the inside is that Amtrak wants to add sleeper capacity to increase revenue, but the trade off is either remove a coach car during peak season, which offsets the revenue gains, or remove a coach diner. But with the latter choice, the remaining food service cars then wouldn’t have the capacity to serve a full train. So, you drop the coach meals, save a bunch of costs in the process, and still benefit from the added sleeper revenue.

The other explanation I’ve heard is that Richard Anderson is a three-headed demon-monster that feasts on the souls of sugar plum fairies.

I'm not sure we can disprove any of the above hypotheses...

 

[dogbert617]

From our travels this year, the Auto-Train was a far better experience than the SWC or Sunset.

Speaking of what you said there, and for a second to not think about the Auto Train, between the Southwest Chief and Sunset Limited which of those 2 trains did you prefer more? I'm possibly thinking about doing either some sort of Southwest Chief or Eagle/Sunset combination trip in January, but hadn't decided which of those 2 lines would be better. Also if I wanted to do an idea that was very ambitious as heck, I could do CONO south to New Orleans(and lol suffer through flex dining just for this train, though with the rest of my meals being traditional dining that wouldn't be terrible), Sunset west to San Antonio, and then Texas Eagle north and do some sort of brief stop north of there(Austin? Fort Worth? Dallas? Little Rock?), then head back to Chicago.

Thanks for answering my question between the Chief and Sunset, which you preferred more. I perhaps may not do that more ambitious idea in the end, but you never know?

 

[Palmland]

Dogbert, I don’t think we saw a real difference between the two trains. Similar equipment, good crews, mediocre food on both trains. The difference is in the route itself and the on time performance.

Most of our travels were in the west and I give a slight edge to the SWC for its route over Raton pass and improved odds of on time performance with BNSF double track. We also enjoyed the sunset in west Texas and the rugged landscape of the southwest. The Sunset for us was a disaster operating over 5 hours late east of San Antonio and the scenery in that part of the trip was unremarkable.

You have good idea of a circle trip and it’s unfortunate you can’t do it in the west without going to the coast. Maybe some day we’ll see a train from KC to Dallas/Ft Worth or a SWC connection to Denver.