Is Amtrak LD Truly Relevant

[zephyr17]

The Strip is reasonably compact, the station was right by the strip, and the trip isn't that long if you can work out a deal with UP. Of course, UP is also UP...

Wrong!!!!!!

While the tracks do run (semi) next to the Strip, the station was in Downtown Las Vegas. It was at the Union Plaza - built by the Union Pacific (UP)! And Downtown LV is IIRC over 5 miles from the Strip!

And how do you define "compact"?

IIRC, from the casino on the south end of the Strip to the casino on the north end of the Strip is OVER 7 MILES!

I thought the station the Desert Wind used was in one of the casinos? Or did I misinterpret some images and whatnot and assume that the casino was a "strip casino" versus a "downtown casino"?

Edit: Just saw the last post. Ok, mea culpa...I thought that casino was in a different location than it actually is.

It is Fremont Street/Downtown Vegas versus The Strip. They are two very different places. The railroad runs near, but not at the Strip, whereas it is a the foot of Fremont Street, behind the Union Plaza (which was built on the site of the UP station).

The Rio is the only non-downtown major hotel that is actually is beside the tracks, at Flamingo and the tracks, and there was talk about putting a platform there when there was still conversation about the Vegas Talgo. But the Rio is off-Strip. Not very far, but off-Strip.

 

[Anderson]

The Strip is reasonably compact, the station was right by the strip, and the trip isn't that long if you can work out a deal with UP. Of course, UP is also UP...

Wrong!!!!!!

While the tracks do run (semi) next to the Strip, the station was in Downtown Las Vegas. It was at the Union Plaza - built by the Union Pacific (UP)! And Downtown LV is IIRC over 5 miles from the Strip!

And how do you define "compact"?

IIRC, from the casino on the south end of the Strip to the casino on the north end of the Strip is OVER 7 MILES!

I thought the station the Desert Wind used was in one of the casinos? Or did I misinterpret some images and whatnot and assume that the casino was a "strip casino" versus a "downtown casino"?

Edit: Just saw the last post. Ok, mea culpa...I thought that casino was in a different location than it actually is.

It is Fremont Street/Downtown Vegas versus The Strip. They are two very different places. The railroad runs near, but not at the Strip, whereas it is a the foot of Fremont Street, behind the Union Plaza (which was built on the site of the UP station).

The Rio is the only non-downtown major hotel that is actually is beside the tracks, at Flamingo and the tracks, and there was talk about putting a platform there when there was still conversation about the Vegas Talgo. But the Rio is off-Strip. Not very far, but off-Strip.

Ok, that explains the disconnect. The pictures might have been of the back of the Rio...would that make sense?

 

[The Journalist]

"The Strip" is sort of a hazy designation; I think most would consider Rio a Strip casino even though it's not on Las Vegas Blvd; it's only a (long) block off, behind the Bellagio and Caesar's and across the highway.

Nonetheless, the Plaza, where the former train station is, is not on the Strip, it's downtown on Fremont Street-the older tourist district.

 

[dlagrua]

There are 300 million people living in the USA. I cannot believe a domestic airline passenger market of 600 million people. Are you sure that we are not talking about a world wide market?

As for the poster that claimed that we are all leftists I would have to disagree. I am very pro Amtrak, not a leftist, socialist, democrat, republican or conservative. I support Amtrak as it serves the public interest, period. That is the purpose of government.

 

[zephyr17]

The Strip is reasonably compact, the station was right by the strip, and the trip isn't that long if you can work out a deal with UP. Of course, UP is also UP...

Wrong!!!!!!

While the tracks do run (semi) next to the Strip, the station was in Downtown Las Vegas. It was at the Union Plaza - built by the Union Pacific (UP)! And Downtown LV is IIRC over 5 miles from the Strip!

And how do you define "compact"?

IIRC, from the casino on the south end of the Strip to the casino on the north end of the Strip is OVER 7 MILES!

I thought the station the Desert Wind used was in one of the casinos? Or did I misinterpret some images and whatnot and assume that the casino was a "strip casino" versus a "downtown casino"?

Edit: Just saw the last post. Ok, mea culpa...I thought that casino was in a different location than it actually is.

It is Fremont Street/Downtown Vegas versus The Strip. They are two very different places. The railroad runs near, but not at the Strip, whereas it is a the foot of Fremont Street, behind the Union Plaza (which was built on the site of the UP station).

The Rio is the only non-downtown major hotel that is actually is beside the tracks, at Flamingo and the tracks, and there was talk about putting a platform there when there was still conversation about the Vegas Talgo. But the Rio is off-Strip. Not very far, but off-Strip.

Ok, that explains the disconnect. The pictures might have been of the back of the Rio...would that make sense?

Any pictures of the Desert Wind would have been at the Amtrak station embedded in the Union Plaza downtown. The platform at the Rio never progressed beyond the talking stage in connection with the elusive resumption of LA-Vegas service that never happened.

And it is really nasty walk between the Rio and the Strip. Long, up and over both the tracks and I-15 and not pedestrian friendly at all, particularly the I-15 ramps on Flamingo. Harrah's runs (or at least used to run) a shuttle that went from Harrah's to the Rio and back to get people to and from the Rio from the Strip.

 

[PRR 60]

There are 300 million people living in the USA. I cannot believe a domestic airline passenger market of 600 million people. Are you sure that we are not talking about a world wide market?

US Domestic airline passengers (departures from US airports for US destinations) in 2010 was 629,517,517. International passengers from US airports in 2010 was 157,798,279. Recognize that a lot of people fly multiple times a year. I counted as 22 passengers.

BTS

 

[Anderson]

There are 300 million people living in the USA. I cannot believe a domestic airline passenger market of 600 million people. Are you sure that we are not talking about a world wide market?

US Domestic airline passengers (departures from US airports for US destinations) in 2010 was 629,517,517. International passengers from US airports in 2010 was 157,798,279. Recognize that a lot of people fly multiple times a year. I counted as 22 passengers.

BTS

Yeah...you're going to have some business travelers who probably count as 50+ passengers per year; some may well push 100 with enough aggressive shuttling around. On the other end, I counted as zero last year and intend to stay at 0.

 

[Oldsmoboi]

On the subject of government subsidies; when compared to airlines and the highway system, Amtraks receives the least amount of the US transportation budget. It is between 2% and 3%-that's it!

Now compare airline ridership to Amtrak ridership.

now compare automobile usage to airline ridership....

 

[Oldsmoboi]

There are 300 million people living in the USA. I cannot believe a domestic airline passenger market of 600 million people. Are you sure that we are not talking about a world wide market?

US Domestic airline passengers (departures from US airports for US destinations) in 2010 was 629,517,517. International passengers from US airports in 2010 was 157,798,279. Recognize that a lot of people fly multiple times a year. I counted as 22 passengers.

BTS

If I am reading that site correctly. If I fly Pittsburgh to New Haven with a stop in Washington DC, I then count as two passengers. .... so every time there is a connecting flight involved, you're getting counted twice.

 

[George Harris]

There are 300 million people living in the USA. I cannot believe a domestic airline passenger market of 600 million people. Are you sure that we are not talking about a world wide market?

US Domestic airline passengers (departures from US airports for US destinations) in 2010 was 629,517,517. International passengers from US airports in 2010 was 157,798,279. Recognize that a lot of people fly multiple times a year. I counted as 22 passengers.

BTS

If I am reading that site correctly. If I fly Pittsburgh to New Haven with a stop in Washington DC, I then count as two passengers. .... so every time there is a connecting flight involved, you're getting counted twice.

So: That would mean that within the last year I have been counted as an airline passenger 12 times and as an Amtrak passenger 10 times. But, since all my Amtrak trips inclued a transbay bus leg, does that mean 20 times on Amtrak? If we do this by miles though, the picture changes. The Amtrak number comes up to about 2100 miles and the airline number up to around 11,000 miles.

Since I am carless in SF, there are a lot of trips on Muni and quite a few on Caltrain and VTA, so for pure number of trips these would be far ahead of all else. But: the milage would not be there. The average Caltrain trip is 32 miles and the average Amtrak trip 210 miles.

I am saying all this to say that, by careful manipulation you can prove almost anything you want with statistics.

 

[Amtrak boy]

There are 300 million people living in the USA. I cannot believe a domestic airline passenger market of 600 million people. Are you sure that we are not talking about a world wide market?

US Domestic airline passengers (departures from US airports for US destinations) in 2010 was 629,517,517. International passengers from US airports in 2010 was 157,798,279. Recognize that a lot of people fly multiple times a year. I counted as 22 passengers.

BTS

If I am reading that site correctly. If I fly Pittsburgh to New Haven with a stop in Washington DC, I then count as two passengers. .... so every time there is a connecting flight involved, you're getting counted twice.

You would only count as one passenger btw Pittsburgh and New Haven if you're flying through DC. The DC-New Haven leg would not count as a commercial air journey.

 

[Anderson]

I don't think the bus trips get counted; they get a separate revenue line item with no trips counted on the performance reports.

 

[Oldsmoboi]

The point is that subsidy per passenger mile is a stupid metric. No one would take a 737 from Trenton to New York and very very few would take a train from NYC to LA.

I can't imagine every wanting to fly between DC and NYC. After figuring commute time to the airport, sexcurity groping, and sitting at the gate, Acela or NER will beat US Airways every single time. Turns out, this is also where Amtrak makes the most money, thus uses the lowest subsidy per mile.

When and Where Amtrak provides fast, reliable, and frequent service, it does very well. Even on the less fast routes like Michigan and Illinois service Amtrak still does well.

 

[guest]

Looking at LD on-time statistics, I really don't think Amtrak is vaguely relevant. [snip]

Anybody else notice wildcat posted his provocative message, looked in once about an hour later and has not been back since to view the flamefest he started? He has not posted another thing in the three years he has been an AU member. Curious.

So? What difference does it make who he is or how many times he has posted? As AlanH posted, discuss the facts and leave the individual(s) out of it. The OP raised a lot of interesting points and has created a very meaty list of responses. Nuf said.

 

[Ryan]

It would be better if the OP were to come back and actually defend their ideas instead of just throwing a hand grenade and sitting back and watching.

I smell a troll.

 

[AlanB]

It would be better if the OP were to come back and actually defend their ideas instead of just throwing a hand grenade and sitting back and watching.

I smell a troll.

Was my earlier post somehow unclear? :unsure:

While I can't explain why, he made two subsequent posts as a guest.

 

[saxman]

The point is that subsidy per passenger mile is a stupid metric. No one would take a 737 from Trenton to New York and very very few would take a train from NYC to LA.

I can't imagine every wanting to fly between DC and NYC. After figuring commute time to the airport, sexcurity groping, and sitting at the gate, Acela or NER will beat US Airways every single time. Turns out, this is also where Amtrak makes the most money, thus uses the lowest subsidy per mile.

When and Where Amtrak provides fast, reliable, and frequent service, it does very well. Even on the less fast routes like Michigan and Illinois service Amtrak still does well.

Subsidy per passenger mile, maybe not, but revenue per passenger mile is an important metric.

There are still 23 flight per day between DCA and LGA. Pretty much every 30 minutes. I will say this though...Delta use to have MD-88's on it's shuttle flights, but has now gone to E-175 jets. So basically 150 seats to 76 seats. Looks like US Airways still using the Airbus. Note this doesn't include the other NYC airports (EWR, JFK)

Sure wish I could look up the load factors on that website for a particular route.

 

[Anderson]

Alright, checked the YTD (i.e. October to May) CR numbers against the same period last year for the LD routes, excluding the OEPB costs. Here's what I get:

Line FY 10 CR FY 11 CR Δ CR

Silver Star 40.08% 41.90% 1.83%

Silver Meteor 47.37% 47.29% -0.07%

Palmetto 49.48% 48.52% -0.96%

Cardinal 28.67% 30.00% 1.33%

Empire Builder 40.85% 46.53% 5.68%

Capitol Ltd. 43.22% 47.08% 3.86%

CA Zephyr 39.70% 42.64% 2.94%

SW Chief 37.50% 41.42% 3.92%

City of NO 43.02% 44.96% 1.94%

TX Eagle 41.79% 46.72% 4.94%

Sunset Ltd. 19.94% 23.58% 3.64%

Coast Starlight 40.90% 41.37% 0.47%

Lake Shore Ltd. 39.58% 45.43% 5.85%

Crescent 39.71% 42.22% 2.51%

Auto Train 77.68% 80.30% 2.63%

Please note that the numbers exclude the summer season for both years (FY 11 for obvious reasons...that is, unless someone would like to try and get me the September 2011 report before that month even begins; FY 10 is excluded for comparison purposes). Also, do note that the Empire Builder is distorted due to all of the issues that train was having; the sad truth is that I would not be surprised to see the Builder's ratio come close to 60% on all the trouble that it has had (the stub train is probably going to look shockingly good...if only we could get hard numbers on that, we could probably make a good case for an additional daily train between CHI and MSP.

The number I find most interesting is the LSL's bump: If that holds, the Lake Shore might well hit 50% CR this year.

Edit: A second list. Assuming that the trains manage to hold their gains for the whole of FY11, the CR numbers will be as follows for FY11:

Line

Silver Star 43.38%

Silver Meteor 48.69%

Palmetto 52.50%

Cardinal 32.72%

Empire Builder 57.94%

Capitol Ltd. 53.00%

CA Zephyr 50.86%

SW Chief 47.34%

City of NO 47.24%

TX Eagle 51.95%

Sunset Ltd. 26.43%

Coast Starlight 46.86%

Lake Shore Ltd. 51.07%

Crescent 45.49%

Auto Train 79.18%

 

[NY Penn]

That's rather pathetic by international standards.

IMO, the only way to solve the issue is to extend trains, and YES, I know that Amtrak does not have the cars to do so.

 

[Ryan]

It would be better if the OP were to come back and actually defend their ideas instead of just throwing a hand grenade and sitting back and watching.

I smell a troll.

Was my earlier post somehow unclear? :unsure:

While I can't explain why, he made two subsequent posts as a guest.

It doesn't count as "defending their ideas" if those of us reading at home don't know that it's them.

Edit: In fact, it's a pretty dishonest way of trying to build support by appearing (to the outside reader) to a separate person be agreeing with the OP.

 

[jis]

Subsidy per passenger mile, maybe not, but revenue per passenger mile is an important metric.

There are still 23 flight per day between DCA and LGA. Pretty much every 30 minutes. I will say this though...Delta use to have MD-88's on it's shuttle flights, but has now gone to E-175 jets. So basically 150 seats to 76 seats. Looks like US Airways still using the Airbus. Note this doesn't include the other NYC airports (EWR, JFK)

Sure wish I could look up the load factors on that website for a particular route.

Actually Revenue per Seat Mile is an even more important metric, since the seat miles are the things being run around whether there is a butt in the seat or not. That's why Amtrak and airlines report their overall RASM and CASM numbers.

 

[Oldsmoboi]

The point is that subsidy per passenger mile is a stupid metric. No one would take a 737 from Trenton to New York and very very few would take a train from NYC to LA.

I can't imagine every wanting to fly between DC and NYC. After figuring commute time to the airport, sexcurity groping, and sitting at the gate, Acela or NER will beat US Airways every single time. Turns out, this is also where Amtrak makes the most money, thus uses the lowest subsidy per mile.

When and Where Amtrak provides fast, reliable, and frequent service, it does very well. Even on the less fast routes like Michigan and Illinois service Amtrak still does well.

Subsidy per passenger mile, maybe not, but revenue per passenger mile is an important metric.

There are still 23 flight per day between DCA and LGA. Pretty much every 30 minutes. I will say this though...Delta use to have MD-88's on it's shuttle flights, but has now gone to E-175 jets. So basically 150 seats to 76 seats. Looks like US Airways still using the Airbus. Note this doesn't include the other NYC airports (EWR, JFK)

Sure wish I could look up the load factors on that website for a particular route.

The cheapest RT flight I can find on Delta is $378 and I still have to schlep out to LGA to do it.

Acela is $278 for low bucket RT.

So yeah, Amtrak is probably leaving some money on the table.

 

[George Harris]

That's rather pathetic by international standards.

IMO, the only way to solve the issue is to extend trains, and YES, I know that Amtrak does not have the cars to do so.

Suggest that you look up the relative performance of railway passenger service elsewhere. You may find tha tAmtrak is not so pathetic after all. It has been several years since I did, but I was surprised at how well Amtrak did in comparison with places that had much denser service per line averages.

 

[Anderson]

The point is that subsidy per passenger mile is a stupid metric. No one would take a 737 from Trenton to New York and very very few would take a train from NYC to LA.

I can't imagine every wanting to fly between DC and NYC. After figuring commute time to the airport, sexcurity groping, and sitting at the gate, Acela or NER will beat US Airways every single time. Turns out, this is also where Amtrak makes the most money, thus uses the lowest subsidy per mile.

When and Where Amtrak provides fast, reliable, and frequent service, it does very well. Even on the less fast routes like Michigan and Illinois service Amtrak still does well.

Subsidy per passenger mile, maybe not, but revenue per passenger mile is an important metric.

There are still 23 flight per day between DCA and LGA. Pretty much every 30 minutes. I will say this though...Delta use to have MD-88's on it's shuttle flights, but has now gone to E-175 jets. So basically 150 seats to 76 seats. Looks like US Airways still using the Airbus. Note this doesn't include the other NYC airports (EWR, JFK)

Sure wish I could look up the load factors on that website for a particular route.

The cheapest RT flight I can find on Delta is $378 and I still have to schlep out to LGA to do it.

Acela is $278 for low bucket RT.

So yeah, Amtrak is probably leaving some money on the table.

One of the problems, though, is that if Amtrak chases every penny on the table right now, they'll lose a share of their customers in the process (and I highly doubt that Amtrak wants to have to slash fares when the new Acela cars come online). The other problem is that:

A) The low bucket is not the high bucket, and the high bucket can be substantially higher; and combined with that

B) Amtrak's fares, if not regulated, are at least partly answerable to Congress in some form, IIRC. I seem to recall there being a decent reason that they're hesitant to raise fares, and I know they're restricted on what they can do as far as bucket variations go.

Edit: Another point to remember is that the low bucket is going to be largely MIA for the midday trains, while I don't think Amtrak can sell out the 5 AM Acela at virtually any reasonable price.

 

[the_traveler]

Another point to remember is that the low bucket is going to be largely MIA for the midday trains, while I don't think Amtrak can sell out the 5 AM Acela at virtually any reasonable price.

I agree about the 5 AM Acela. However, when I do point runs BOS-NYP, I chose the 11:15 AM or 12:15 PM Acelas - since they're usually low bucket. I could take the 9:15 AM Acela, but it is usually at mid bucket or higher.