Auto Train Cuts

[Carolyn Jane]

Slightly off topic, or maybe not...I always count the cars as the train goes through, and last night I counted 17 superliners, instead of the usual 16. Thought maybe I had miscounted, but again tonight, there were 17 cars (plus 32 cxar carriers). With two engines, that makes 51 units. I though AT was only supposed to have 50 units, or do those units not include the engines? CJ

 

[CREW-DORM#2524]

Lounges 33100 and 33101 were both wrecked in Crescent City but both returned to service.

 

[andersone]

I found the NTSB report on the Crescent City crash very interesting.

"The 3rd through 23rd cars derailed during the accident. The first 16 cars in the train behind the locomotive units were Amtrak Superliner passenger cars; these were followed by 24 autorack cars. After the derailment, the locomotive units and first two passenger cars remained on the rails. The next 14 passenger cars and the 7 succeeding autorack cars derailed. The 7 derailed autorack cars remained generally in-line. The remaining 17 autorack cars stayed on the rails. (See figure 5 and table 2 for the post-accident disposition of the 2 locomotive units and the first 23 cars of the train.)
The NTSB went nuts over the passenger accountability system - i wonder what the difference is almost fifteen years later?

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Passenger accountability system been a problem for a bit, the new E-Ticket help a lot, but since you can exit the train at any station with out telling anyone, well the system is never fool prove.

 

[Allypet]

Last year I took the auto train for 6 trips last year (3 round trips), all in sleepers, and I have another trip booked for July already. I am very disappointed over the loss of the lounge car. I travel with my family, and usually have two rooms to accommodate everyone. The only place we can all get together is in the lounge car. At most times the sleeper lounge car is full, and with the coach passengers using it also I am afraid that the remaining lounge car will be crowded beyond belief.

I enjoy the wine and cheese, but if they feel the need to get rid of it, then so be it. I'm not sure how the staggered seating will work out. But I do enjoy a civilized meal.

However, the service I received last year ran from so-so to downright terrible. Since I paid for it already, I will see how my next trip works out. If I can't sit my family together for some conversation time in the lounge car, and with the constant crappy and nasty service I received lately, this will be the straw that breaks the camels back, and this will be my last AT trip.

 

[George Harris]

They could quite easily solve the problem by running the train with a third engine running in-between the last passenger car and the first auto carrier, with it providing HEP for half the cars, and the second unit providing HEP for the other half. But this isn't really about capacity, its about downgrading costs.

Its not quite that simple. They'd either have to have a power car without traction motors or MU the entire train. You can't run an engine in the middle of the train without the Engineer having control of the engine brakes on that unit. DPU technology could be deployed for this, especially since Auto Train uses a captive fleet. However, with the power shortages the entire system is facing, allocating an additional two units to the AT pool won't happen anytime soon.

Don't know what is happening in the east, but commonly see on both UP and BNSF freights running with power on both ends, and that on the rear end is working. I think one of the main reasons is to reduce set up and release time for the brakes, although reduced coupler forces may be part of it, as well. how this is being managed, I don't know, but as certain it is not by MU cables. I know in the early 60's Southern tried running trains with distributed power, that is what they called it, with the remote units being radio controlled. They had a northbound train frequency and a southbound train frequency. I know they had some problems, such as losing communication between power sets in tunnels. And, for Chattanooga to Ooltewah, to name one place, you could have trains both designated as going in the same direction meeting each other. (Chattanooga to Atlanta meeting Knoxville to Birmingham/New Orleans or Memphis.) Surely in the 50 years since controlling remote units should be better managed.

Saying that to say that it should be possible to place a unit between the passenger cars and the auto carriers without having to MU the train. If they have insufficient units available, perhaps Amtrak should consider leasing a couple of units from CSX. After all, the Auto Train is limited to 70 mph, which is within the capability of the freight units.

 

[neroden]

...

Amtrak Southeast Deputy General Manager Tom Kirk and Auto Train route director Kathy Brewer have announced service cuts and changes on Auto Train as detailed:

1. Remove First Class Lounge, all pax to use one Lounge Car.

a. Eliminate LSA, $550,000 labor cost reduction

b. Eliminate complimentary wine and cheese

c. Removing Lounge to add 5th coach for revenue passengers

d. Target date - 3/14

Cost in lost patronage due to complaints about overcrowded lounge: roughly $1,000,000 / year

2. Eliminate complimentary wine in diner

a. Sleeper and Coach diner @ $275,000 ($221,500 and $54,000

respectively)

b. Target date - 3/14

c. Also an OIG report item (named in Inspector General report on

food and beverage costs -GP)

(I don't have a problem with this)

3. Add 5th Coach

a. Increase revenue $1,500,000

b. Target date - 3/14

4. Realign consist to have food service cars together and centered in

train

a. Sleeper diner

b. Table car

c. Coach diner

d. Coach Lounge

e. Start staggered seating in Sleeper Diner

This looks like it will work tolerably well; same number of dining seats.

5. Move to single menu for all diners

a. Target date - May menu change

b. Incremental savings on F&B (TBA i.e.: linen elimination cost

savings)

c. Eliminate Sleeper Diner Food Specialist (no china) $550,000 labor

savings

Increased costs from disposable dishes: $550,000

Reduced revenue from disgusted customers: $500,000

d. Initiate at room beverage service (revenue) for sleeper

passengers in lieu wine

e. Initiate alcohol sales promotion in diner

6. Pass rider fee initiative

a. Revenue

i. Average 8050 annual pass riders @ $30 fee = $214,000 (use

as F&B transfer)

ii. Average 4600 vehicles @ $75 fee = $345,000

iii. Total revenue generated = $586,000

b. Also an OIG report item

c. Need to work with Marketing to implement

Not complaining about this!

Total cost savings initiative $1,564,000 Total P&L impact $3,650,000 (F&B P&L impact $1,777,000)

Lost revenue and increased costs: roughly $2,050,000. Total P&L impact $1,600,000, from adding a coach and charging passholders.
These are simply estimates, but they're going to be order-of-magnitude correct.

The people at Amtrak don't know how to calculate costs or income. The removal of the lounge is stupid and the removal of china from the diner is a false savings.

 

[neroden]

Looks to me that the reason for replacing the second lounge car with a coach car is to increase capacity for more revenue sales.

Which is stupid. I'm all for adding a coach, but they're going to need even more lounge cars if they add a coach. Add a coach and keep the lounge car.
If you have one lounge car for that many people, people will just get mad at you. And they'll start moving into the diner to use it as lounge space, whether that's permitted or not. I know if the lounge was consistently overfilled, I would start hogging diner time, slowing the entire food service operation down. I can easily spend 2-3 hours eating a leisurely meal.

Complete morons in the Amtrak administration don't understand the basics of designing amenities on trains. It involves counting the number of passengers, folks!

I realize that the Auto Train has some sort of idiotic limit on how many cars long it is allowed to be. Well, guys, if you want to add more coaches, figure out how to overcome that limit. You need a sensible ratio of lounge space to coach space, and not doing so is going to give you endless trouble.

Idiots.

 

[neroden]

First I have to say that I've never taken the auto train and probably never will (no car and not living in the US...). I'm also not an "all trains have to make a profit" guy and am happy with subsidies when needed.

But - if you have a very long train that runs close to 75 percent full, and it still doesn't make money - then you're doing something wrong! And I'm not talking about avoidable costs or before overhead here. If you count that the AT is above water, but a train running this well - it has to make enough money that it also pays it's share of general company expenses. I think that is a political reality as well as common sense. Subsidies has to be spent on services that needs them.

There's basically only two ways of doing this - save on costs or raise prices.

This is actually wrong. In railroading, vast quantities of the expenses are fixed costs, and very little of the expenses are variable costs. Economies of scale. This means that the *third*, and *correct*, way of doing this is to spread out the fixed costs over an even larger number of variable costs.
So yes, add a coach to the train, and more autoracks. But for goodness sake don't remove the second lounge car. If Amtrak doesn't want to pay for the lounge attendant.... don't. Make it an unattended lounge; the demand is for lounge space, not for additional cafe service.

Think about this: adding an extra coach on Auto Train is also going to add over 50 additional automobiles. This means more autoracks. This means Amtrak has clearly figured out how to get CSX to eliminate whatever limitation there was on the length of the train. Therefore that isn't a problem which would "require" the removal of the lounge.

Perhaps the Head End Power supply is too low to supply the current consist and another lounge. In this case Amtrak has to bite the bullet and add a locomotive, unfortunately. (Which still doesn't add staff costs, so it's still spreading fixed costs out.)

 

[neroden]

Seatings generally have taken about 2 hours from the beginning of one until the beginning of the next. The goal is to cut this time, which many passengers may find objectionable.

You can cut dining seating time in two ways1) Provide attractive lounge space (so that people leave their seats faster)

(2) Provide more staffing in the dining car (so that people get served faster)

Amtrak is currently proposing the exact opposite. The result will be that seatings will take even longer. Does the management have a clue? Or should the Auto Train director be fired immediately? I think the latter.

(Edit: I guess there's a third way: eliminate dessert.)

 

[printman2000]

Perhaps the Head End Power supply is too low to supply the current consist and another lounge. In this case Amtrak has to bite the bullet and add a locomotive, unfortunately. (Which still doesn't add staff costs, so it's still spreading fixed costs out.)

I am fairly certain the HEP comes from only one locomotive at a time so adding another locomotive will not produce more HEP.

 

[neroden]

This sounds like a problem for an electrical engineer.

I'm not sure where the HEP limitation is coming from. If it's coming from the distribution wiring, then you'd need distributed power. If it's coming from the locomotive's generation ability, then dedicate one locomotive entirely to HEP generation (disconnect it from the wheels) and you should be able to generate a hell of a lot.

 

[rrdude]

...

Total cost savings initiative $1,564,000 Total P&L impact $3,650,000 (F&B P&L impact $1,777,000)

Lost revenue and increased costs: roughly $2,050,000. Total P&L impact $1,600,000, from adding a coach and charging passholders.
These are simply estimates, but they're going to be order-of-magnitude correct.

The people at Amtrak don't know how to calculate costs or income. The removal of the lounge is stupid and the removal of china from the diner is a false savings.

And really, tell me this, how on earth does this fit into Amtrak's so-called policy / goal of touting itself as "GREEN"?

The use of plastic, instead of re-washing china, (over and over, and over) not only causes more plastic to be produced in the first place, it then cause more plastic TRASH. I'm sure I would still probably complain if Amtrak moved to a biodegradable dishware, plates, bowl, etc., but at LEAST it would be better for the environment.

As it is, not-so-much,

 

[Allypet]

So let me get this straight. This is what the Auto Train looks like now:

Current AUTO TRAIN — 2 sets

------|---- —— Superliner Dorm
5245|5345 —— Superliner Sleeper
5243|5343 —— Superliner Sleeper
5241|5341 —— Superliner Sleeper Deluxe
-------|---- —— Superliner Auto Train Lounge
-------|---- —— Superliner Diner
5240|5340 —— Superliner Sleeper Deluxe
5242|5342 —— Superliner Sleeper
5244|5344 —— Superliner Sleeper
5210|5310 —— Superliner Coach
5211|5311 —— Superliner Coach
5212|5312 —— Superliner Coach
5213|5313 —— Superliner Coach
------|---- —— Superliner Auto Train Lounge
------|---- —— Superliner Diner
------|---- —— Superliner Diner (as table car)

Now they want to do this:

proposed AUTO TRAIN — 2 sets

------|---- —— Superliner Dorm
5245|5345 —— Superliner Sleeper
5243|5343 —— Superliner Sleeper
5241|5341 —— Superliner Sleeper Deluxe
5240|5340 —— Superliner Sleeper Deluxe
5242|5342 —— Superliner Sleeper
5244|5344 —— Superliner Sleeper
------|---- ——-Sleeper Diner
------|---- —— Superliner Diner (as table car)
------|---- ——-Coach Diner
------|---- —— Superliner Auto Train Lounge

5210|5310 —— Superliner Coach
5211|5311 —— Superliner Coach
5212|5312 —— Superliner Coach
5213|5313 —— Superliner Coach
5214|5314 —— Superliner Coach

So for the unfortunate ones in the first or last car (sleeper or coach), it could be an 8 to 10 car walk to get to a seat for dinner, or the lounge car (depending on how the consist is set up)!

Really Amtrak, you think this makes sense to families with young kids or seniors? I guess Amtrak wants people to stay in their seats and not walk around and annoy the staff with silly things like wanting to be fed.
Amtrak really wants to prove its the longest passenger train in the world, and the walk will prove it.

 

[Ryan]

The HEP limitation comes from the current limitations on the wires that run from car to car.

The only way to fix it is to put a locomotive (or generator car) in between the passenger cars and the auto racks and have part of the consist fed from the front and part of the consist fed from the back.

However, FRA regs say that you have to be able to cut off HEP from the operating cab, which you can't do if you're running the train on two separate systems. MU cables aren't set up to control HEP, so you'd have to either rig up some type of alternative control mechanism or pay someone to ride in the locomotive/generator car to cut off the HEP if needed.

Neither one of which is cheap, which is why it hasn't happened yet.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

. . . if you have a very long train that runs close to 75 percent full, and it still doesn't make money - then you're doing something wrong! And I'm not talking about avoidable costs or before overhead here. If you count that the AT is above water, but a train running this well - it has to make enough money that it also pays its share of general company expenses. . . .

There's basically only two ways of doing this - save on costs or raise prices.

. . . In railroading, vast quantities of the expenses are fixed costs, and very little of the expenses are variable costs. Economies of scale. This means that the *third*, and *correct*, way of doing this is to spread out the fixed costs over an even larger number of variable costs.
So yes, add a coach to the train, and more autoracks. . . .

I'm always for adding another frequency. Of course, there's a terrible shortage of equipment, but in my dream world (CSX is in my nightmare world, LOL). But I can see room for a second AutoTrain.

The current schedule at Lorton:

Auto Train begins accepting vehicles at
11 30A
Motorcycles and trailers accepted no later than
2 00P
Priority Vehicle Offloading vehicles accepted no later than
2 30P
Passenger boarding begins at
2 30P
No Vehicle will be accepted after
3 00P
Auto Train departs boarding station
4 00P
Auto Train arrives at destination station
9 30 A

==================

A second, earlier schedule at Lorton:

Auto Train begins accepting vehicles at
8 00A
Motorcycles and trailers accepted no later than
10 30A
Priority Vehicle Offloading vehicles accepted no later than
10 30A
Passenger boarding begins at
11 00A
NO Vehicle will be accepted after
11 30A
Auto Train departs boarding station
12 30P
Auto Train arrives at destination station
6 00 A

A revised, later schedule at Lorton:

Auto Train begins accepting vehicles at
12 30P
Motorcycles and trailers accepted no later than
1 00P
Priority Vehicle Offloading vehicles accepted no later than
3 30P
Passenger boarding begins at
3 30P
NO Vehicle will be accepted after
4 00P
Auto Train departs boarding station
5 00P
Auto Train arrives at destination station
10 30 A

Someone with expertise, like someone at Amtrak, could tweak this schedule. That 6 00A arrival looks too damn early. I was allowing plenty of time between the two arrivals. If the arrival protocol does not require as much time, the Sanford arrival could be later. Of course, lots of people, especially retired people, for reasons I've never understood even not that I am one, like to get up early and get going. I'll just stake that later train, thank you.

Running two shorter Auto Trains instead of one Mega Train could allow a slightly shorter boarding protocol for both, so that might allow a departure at 1 00P or 1 30P giving an arrival more or less 7 00A.


Anyway, that's my plan. Break even or make a modest surplus on one Auto Train and make a nice surplus on the volume of a second frequency.

 

[Ryan]

There's absolutely no space at either terminal for a second train.

 

[dabrilloman]

Damn, I need to get my eyes checked...I thought the topic read "Auto Train Cults"...

 

[VentureForth]

It sounds like with these cuts, there won't be a need for a 5th coach. That'll save more money. In fact, to save a LOT of money, get rid of the sleepers, get rid of the diners, get rid of the lounges, and just operate coaches. Then, you'll only need about 8 car carriers because of the lack of ridership, and only two onboard crew - a single coach attendant and a conductor.

I was chastised without mercy on suggesting improvements to the Auto Train service with all kinds of replies such as "Don't mess with something that's actually making money".

Well, they are making changes, and it's going to kill the AT.

Again, this is the only train in the system where everyone is an end to end rider, and it travels during the evening when everyone wants to sleep. EVERYONE would prefer to sleep horizontal but price points drive many riders to take coach.

Run sectionals, tweak UP the cost of coach to cover, and keep the First Class vs. Sectional (ala coach class) differences in service, and this train will only continue to help subsidize the rest of the system.

Again, other than in personnell, I would argue that Amtrak doesn't have an expense problem, they have a revenue problem.

 

[Ryan]

A "solution" that's completely impractical isn't a solution.

Unless you know where Amtrak can come up with the money for the rolling stock to make it happen.

 

[Anderson]

It's possible that Amtrak could get an RRIF loan for a special power car for the train (the ability to add 3-4 cars to the train would be a good thing, though this would probably create an issue with being able to add enough autoracks), but that would probably create a bunch of maintenance issues since it would be dedicated, specialized equipment. The Auto Train is the one LD train I can think of Amtrak being able to justify an RRIF loan outright on the basis of expected profits.

The problem is that with a dedicated power car, you'd probably be looking at something like $50m for the project (assuming four power cars, given that you'd basically be special ordering the set and therefore having to do a lot of ground-up engineering, especially if you wanted to set it up so as not to block one set of cars from the others).

 

[afigg]

It sounds like with these cuts, there won't be a need for a 5th coach. That'll save more money. In fact, to save a LOT of money, get rid of the sleepers, get rid of the diners, get rid of the lounges, and just operate coaches. Then, you'll only need about 8 car carriers because of the lack of ridership, and only two onboard crew - a single coach attendant and a conductor.

I was chastised without mercy on suggesting improvements to the Auto Train service with all kinds of replies such as "Don't mess with something that's actually making money".

Well, they are making changes, and it's going to kill the AT.

I for one doubt that there will be a noticeable drop in ridership because of these changes. The coach passengers won't see much of a difference, while the sleeper passengers lose the lounge car. But, since the service changes are going to be implemented rather quickly, it won't take that long to see what the effect is on ridership and revenue. Have to give it a few months so the ticket sales begin to reflect those who booked after the changes were implemented, but the July and August peak months should be far enough out to provide info on whether there is erosion in sleeper passengers.
Now if Amtrak goes further with cuts such as replacing the dining service with pre-made box meals with stale sandwiches, that would likely hurt sales.

 

[SubwayNut]

The one (sort of regularly scheduled) passenger railway in the US I can think of that uses power cars is the Rocky Mountaineer. They generally only one behind the locomotive but for longer trains they stick one in the rear. The power cars I think are converted baggage cars. In 1999 they set a Canadian Passenger train record by running 41 cars (Source).

Here is a power car in the middle of a consist: (the Rainforest to Gold Rush Route (and train) had just made its last trip of the year, and was attached at the front end of the last or second to last Journey through the Clouds run to deadhead back to their main yard and shops in Kamloops). By putting the revenue cars in the back it gave passengers in the rear gold leaf dome a rear back railfan window vestibule view:

Later on that trip I road one with power cars on the front and on the rear, that must have been about a 20 car train.

 

[jis]

Does Rocky Mountaineer use their 41 car consist on a run anywhere in the US? Or do you now consider Canada to be part of the US?

It is also worth remembering that Canadian HEP and Amtrak HEP are somewhat different.

 

[Nathanael]

The HEP limitation comes from the current limitations on the wires that run from car to car.

OK. That's fairly annoying. It sounds like the original HEP system was not designed properly back in the 1970s -- I suppose they thought "nobody will ever have a train this long again"? Stupid. Anyway...

The only way to fix it is to put a locomotive (or generator car) in between the passenger cars and the auto racks and have part of the consist fed from the front and part of the consist fed from the back.

Sounds easy.

However, FRA regs say that you have to be able to cut off HEP from the operating cab, which you can't do if you're running the train on two separate systems.

FRA regs again. I wonder what accident caused this regulation? Probably no accident, probably just the usual nonsense. Railroading attracts people on the autism spectrum (I should know) and people on the autism spectrum tend to like hard, bright-line rules even when they're inappropriate (I should know).

MU cables aren't set up to control HEP, so you'd have to either rig up some type of alternative control mechanism

Cheap. Easy. Simple. I could get it working absolutely reliably in a month, and it would be under a million dollars to equip the fleet. More and more plugs have been added between cars over the years, and it's not really work to add another one for *control circuitry*, which is easy compared to pressurized air or high voltage power. The problem of getting the system certified through the various layers of red tape, of course, would probably take years.....

or pay someone to ride in the locomotive/generator car to cut off the HEP if needed.

There's a conductor, isn't there? And an assistant conductor? This is the sort of thing they do on freight trains, isn't it?

Neither one of which is cheap, which is why it hasn't happened yet.

I dispute the claim that these are not cheap. I say they are in fact cheap, but they are difficult to implement due to layers of regulations and rules.

Here's an alternative proposal, which shouldn't hit the regulatory thicket. The limitation on HEP is apparently driven by air conditioning. The air conditioning systems in the Superliners are over 30 years old. Replace them with modern air conditioning, save energy, and allow the HEP to extend over more cars. This would be more expensive but would have long-term payback.