Did Amtrak Understand in 1983?

[MrFSS]

Here is an ad from an Amtrak timetable in 1983. Maybe they need to be running this type ad today.

 

[VentureForth]

Regrettably, they are still using that same stock that they were bragging about 25 years ago...

Also like the line "Or take a walk into the dining car and enjoy a delicious meal, whenever you like." Boy I wish I could whenever I'd like... Bring in the 24 hour diner!!

The premise is nice. Would like to see more adverts out there...

 

[MStrain]

The ol proverbial catch 22 of business profit.......

and in Amtrak's case:

........increase ridership to buy new equipment or buy new equipment to increase ridership........

or if an airline: spend money to fix the wiring, or keep overbooking flights and just send the planes up literally "on a Wing and a prayer....."

 

[the_traveler]

In 1983 Amtrak went to "over 475 different places", but today it goes to more than (IIRC) 550 different places! And many routes have been cut in the past 25 years!

Also, did you notice there was no website address! You actually had to call Amtrak or visit a travel agent! :lol: And the "more than ... TWA ..."

 

[yarrow]

i am reading a book called "zephyr" by hernry kisor(got my copy used from amazon for 1 penny plus shipping). it is mr kisor's account of amtrak and a trip he took on the california zephyr in the early 1990's. highly recommended. one thing that strikes me is that amtrak and its customers were dealing with the same things as today. lack of equipment(large and small), foolish directives from managment, inconsistent labor, late trains, dumb ideas to try to make dining cars pay. we keep riding and continue to enjoy and complain

 

[Green Maned Lion]

I don't think the average airline customer would understand the benefits of Amtrak travel if they were outlined with illustrations.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

i am reading a book called "zephyr" by hernry kisor(got my copy used from amazon for 1 penny plus shipping). it is mr kisor's account of amtrak and a trip he took on the california zephyr in the early 1990's. highly recommended.

That book is indeed excellent (I came across a copy while browsing the shelves at the main branch of the Somerville, MA library last summer or so).

Regarding the 1983 ad, I'm curious about the claim of rebuilding the whole fleet over 6.5 years. Is that when they did the steam heat to HEP conversion? I thought that the single level sleepers were otherwise pretty much unchanged from the pre-Amtrak railroads until the Viewliners were built in the early to mid-90s.

I also feel like that ad has surprisingly many words in it. I'm not complaining, it's just different from what I'm used to seeing today.

 

[RailFanLNK]

Today I was "eavesdropping" at an eyeglass clinic on my delivery route. A woman was going on and on about her husband being "stuck" in Milwaukee last year due to weather. He was there for like almost 2 days. I told her, "try Amtrak, your husband could've boarded one of the Hiawatha trains in MIL, taken it to CHI and then boarded the California Zephyr and been home the that night. She couldn't believe it and said, "I have never thought of that". I told her, "your never stuck unless you want to be stuck". Said there's always the train and Greyhound too!

 

[MrFSS]

I also feel like that ad has surprisingly many words in it. I'm not complaining, it's just different from what I'm used to seeing today.

Remember - this was in the national timetable, not on TV or the Internet. They had to fill the whole page with something!

 

[frj1983]

i am reading a book called "zephyr" by hernry kisor(got my copy used from amazon for 1 penny plus shipping). it is mr kisor's account of amtrak and a trip he took on the california zephyr in the early 1990's. highly recommended.

That book is indeed excellent (I came across a copy while browsing the shelves at the main branch of the Somerville, MA library last summer or so).

Regarding the 1983 ad, I'm curious about the claim of rebuilding the whole fleet over 6.5 years. Is that when they did the steam heat to HEP conversion? I thought that the single level sleepers were otherwise pretty much unchanged from the pre-Amtrak railroads until the Viewliners were built in the early to mid-90s.

I also feel like that ad has surprisingly many words in it. I'm not complaining, it's just different from what I'm used to seeing today.

I'm far away from my Train books and materials,

But Amtrak did convert many pre-amtrak passenger cars from steam to HEP...although 1983 seems late to me, I thought it had been done earlier? Anyone closer to their reference materials and can give an exact date/s?

 

[Guest]

Go to amtrak.com and read the link about "Benefits to Riding Amtrak"- top right. Interestingly, that blurb reads a lot like the advertisement above.

 

[MrFSS]

Go to amtrak.com and read the link about "Benefits to Riding Amtrak"- top right. Interestingly, that blurb reads a lot like the advertisement above.

And, that link is HERE.

 

[Galls]

I don't think the average airline customer would understand the benefits of Amtrak travel if they were outlined with illustrations.

They understand the pros quite well, they just do not understand the how those pros out way the time differential.

 

[PRR 60]

I don't think the average airline customer would understand the benefits of Amtrak travel if they were outlined with illustrations.

They understand the pros quite well, they just do not understand the how those pros out way the time differential.

In most cases, the Amtrak pros do not overcome the time negatives. Travel today is time sensitive. If you can't be delivered to your destination in a couple of hours, it just does not work most of the time. I can't block out two weeks to take a trip to the west coast very often. I need to get there in a day, spend a few days, and get home. Amtrak is nice, and I take Amtrak LD once in a while when I can, but I simply do not have the luxury of time to use Amtrak as my primary means of getting across country. And, truth be known, Amtrak is not so great that I really regret that reality.

 

[transit54]

In the longer term (much, much longer term), I can see LD HSR solving this issue. With modern technology, you could see 6.5 hr NYP-CHI times and probably 12 or 14 hour times from CHI to the West Coast. Sure, there will still be a substantial market for air travel, but we're also talking about a world in which a plane ticket costs way more than it does now - which is about the cheapest time to fly in the history of air travel. But that's bound to change - as I write this, oil hovers a tad under $115 a barrel.

In the short term, however, you are absolutely correct in that a lot of time for real LD travel, people just don't have the time to spend on a train. I'm looking at moving out to the west coast in January, but all my family is back on the east coast. As much as I'd love to take the train back and forth to see them, the reality is that I simply won't have that time. That being said, Amtrak LD does have a practical role if you're not traveling cross country. If I needed to get between Portland, OR and San Francisco, I could jump on the CS in the late afternoon, and be in San Fran by nine the next morning, fully rested. My younger sister recently decided to attend to University of Pittsburgh - I've mentioned that she could jump on the Capitol Limited at 11 PM and wake up in Chicago at 9 AM, if she wanted to go there for the weekend. But as far as making the trek from PDX to NYP, I just won't have the time to do that very often, and rarely RT.

 

[Galls]

I don't think the average airline customer would understand the benefits of Amtrak travel if they were outlined with illustrations.

They understand the pros quite well, they just do not understand the how those pros out way the time differential.

In most cases, the Amtrak pros do not overcome the time negatives. Travel today is time sensitive. If you can't be delivered to your destination in a couple of hours, it just does not work most of the time. I can't block out two weeks to take a trip to the west coast very often. I need to get there in a day, spend a few days, and get home. Amtrak is nice, and I take Amtrak LD once in a while when I can, but I simply do not have the luxury of time to use Amtrak as my primary means of getting across country. And, truth be known, Amtrak is not so great that I really regret that reality.

Reading my post again now, I can see it could have been interpreted as calling the unwashed masses ignorant, when what I was really alluding to was more along the lines as time to destination is more important than the trip 9 times out of 10 and to be frank I very much agree.

 

[Chris J.]

In 1983 Amtrak went to "over 475 different places", but today it goes to more than (IIRC) 550 different places! And many routes have been cut in the past 25 years!

Do the current "550 different places" include all the ones you can only get to by a connecting bus?

 

[Green Maned Lion]

I do not, and can not, agree that getting their in a timely manner is more important than the comfort provided on the trip. But thats me, with my very limited financial aspirations, and hatred of rushing and stress.

 

[meatpuff]

I don't think the average airline customer would understand the benefits of Amtrak travel if they were outlined with illustrations.

They understand the pros quite well, they just do not understand the how those pros out way the time differential.

In most cases, the Amtrak pros do not overcome the time negatives. Travel today is time sensitive. If you can't be delivered to your destination in a couple of hours, it just does not work most of the time. I can't block out two weeks to take a trip to the west coast very often. I need to get there in a day, spend a few days, and get home. Amtrak is nice, and I take Amtrak LD once in a while when I can, but I simply do not have the luxury of time to use Amtrak as my primary means of getting across country. And, truth be known, Amtrak is not so great that I really regret that reality.

Yeah, this is the case for the vast majority of people, and I would think this would be self-evident. People have definitively voted with their wallets, and air travel has won for the last going on fifty years, big time. Just to be clear. Passenger trains, pre-Amtrak, had a complete opportunity to protect their claim on the long-distance travel market (except a regulatory structure that was slow to adapt to changing times, a minor disadvantage). And they lost it, almost all of it. The traveling public was not duped, or hypnotized or anything. I think most people understand now, and understood then, the pros and cons of train travel.

The 1983 ad is very timely and something along those lines might make some hay right about now. A couple of things that are a little bit off key. One, the train stops in more places than United, American, Delta and (now-defunct) TWA put together: but if I'm going to St. Louis on business on United, what do I care if United doesn't fly to Whitefish, MT?? Two, the ad shows a ticket for Chicago - San Francisco in coach...and talks about how Amtrak seats are like better than flying first-class. I don't know about you, but spending two-plus days in an airplane seat cross-country from Chicago to SF is not my idea of luxury - even if it's a first-class airplane seat!

Anyway, I'd write the ad differently if I were gonna run it today. Maybe the biggest problem is that the ad ran in the Amtrak timetable. Not exactly expanding your customer base there...

Thanks for digging that up and posting it! Very interesting!

 

[meatpuff]

I do not, and can not, agree that getting their in a timely manner is more important than the comfort provided on the trip. But thats me, with my very limited financial aspirations, and hatred of rushing and stress.

Then boy have I got a mode of travel for you!

http://www.geocities.com/freighterman.geo/mainmenu.html

NYP to LAX in three days on Amtrak too rushed? On a freighter it would take at least two weeks...and it does sound quite a bit more comfortable than Amtrak. For that matter the price for a (far larger) cabin on a freighter per day looks to be substantially less than an Amtrak roommette.



(Props to BobWeaver for digging up and posting the link in another thread)

 

[jackal]

For that matter the price for a (far larger) cabin on a freighter per day looks to be substantially less than an Amtrak roommette.

Less per day, but the voyages take a lot longer. It sounds like a cool experience, but even though it's cheaper than a cruise or an ocean liner, it's still much more than coach on an airplane, which, for everything else, still remains the cheapest way to travel long distances.

 

[meatpuff]

For that matter the price for a (far larger) cabin on a freighter per day looks to be substantially less than an Amtrak roommette.

Less per day, but the voyages take a lot longer. It sounds like a cool experience, but even though it's cheaper than a cruise or an ocean liner, it's still much more than coach on an airplane, which, for everything else, still remains the cheapest way to travel long distances.

Yeah, international travel on airplanes in some sense is amazingly cheap! Remember, our (European) ancestors sold themselves into servitude for several years in the New World in order to get passage on a ship back before the American Revolution. Now you can fly to London for as little as ~$350 - three or four days pay for some entry level jobs.

The freighter thing is not for me. If I want that experience, I'll just take two months off work, hang a picture of the ocean in my bedroom window and just stay home! It would be a lot cheaper, and not that much different, save opportunities to chat with others on the ship! Amtrak is much easier to fit into a working person's schedule and let us say, a richer sensory experience compared to being out on the open ocean for weeks. I'll stick to Amtrak.

 

[jackal]

For that matter the price for a (far larger) cabin on a freighter per day looks to be substantially less than an Amtrak roommette.

Less per day, but the voyages take a lot longer. It sounds like a cool experience, but even though it's cheaper than a cruise or an ocean liner, it's still much more than coach on an airplane, which, for everything else, still remains the cheapest way to travel long distances.

Yeah, international travel on airplanes in some sense is amazingly cheap! Remember, our (European) ancestors sold themselves into servitude for several years in the New World in order to get passage on a ship back before the American Revolution. Now you can fly to London for as little as ~$350 - three or four days pay for some entry level jobs.

The freighter thing is not for me. If I want that experience, I'll just take two months off work, hang a picture of the ocean in my bedroom window and just stay home! It would be a lot cheaper, and not that much different, save opportunities to chat with others on the ship! Amtrak is much easier to fit into a working person's schedule and let us say, a richer sensory experience compared to being out on the open ocean for weeks. I'll stick to Amtrak.

Make it a 52" plasma display with a video loop of the ocean and a subwoofer to recreate the vibration of the engine, and you're probably right.

You can even have a surly Russian guy drop by your house every now and then and act the part of a captain to create the full experience...

Still, it sounds like fun for a relatively short journey. 43 days round-trip for the U.S.-Australia or NZ is a little excessive, but maybe NYC-Amsterdam (one-way and flying back) or something might be a fun experience...

 

[the_traveler]

...NYC-Amsterdam (one-way and flying back) or something might be a fun experience...

Amsterdam, NY? :lol: (It's between Albany and Syracuse - and on the Erie Canal! But I don't think a freighter would fit in the locks or under the bridges!)

But as a bonus, instead of flying back, you could take Amtrak! (Amsterdam has a station on the Empire Corridor!) And if you wanted to "visit" another country, Rome (NY) is just up the road (and canal) - and also has an Amtrak station! :lol:

Or Greece (NY) and Mexico (NY) are near Rochester, but they don't have Amtrak stations.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Funny you should mention freighter travel. Amtrak has the limitation of not being able to cross the ocean yet. When I travel off this continent, I usually do go by freighter, or if I can find a low enough rate, the ocean liner (there's only one in operation these days- the Queen Mary 2) or repositioning cruise ship.