NHL's Bruins charter Amtrak train from WAS-PHL

[RTE_TrainGuy]

I was watching a behind the scenes show on the NHL Boston Bruins, Behind the B, and the team travelled on an Amtrak train. The video is available for free here, and they show the train part from 9:15 to 10:40:

http://video.bruins.nhl.com/videocenter/console?catid=1405&id=604067&lang=en

According to the show, they took the train on March 29th from Washington DC (presumably WAS) to the PHL station, after a day-game against the Capitals and the day before a day-game against the Flyers. The show said they chartered a three car train, and they show a 'First Class Conference Car' and a business class car, which I believe is the 1x2 business/cafe cars usually on the over-night NE Regional. They didn't specifically mention if they had an entire train or if they had their own cars added to a normal NE Regional, but I suspect given their scheduling needs they had their own train/engines.

I figured some here would find this interesting. Does anyone know how common taking the train is for sports teams? It seems like a good option for the short trips, when a charter flight is so short and the train stations are often close to arenas and team hotels. I had never heard of or seen a 'First Class Conference Car'.

Go Bruins!

 

[SarahZ]

Go Bruins!

I'm sorry-not-sorry we beat you last night.

(Honestly, though, your team is really really really good, so I'll take what I can get. As much as I'd love to see my Wings advance, it's kind of like David taking down Goliath.)

 

[Ryan]

What is this "hockey" you guys are speaking of.

The season's over, no hockey until next year.

 

[afigg]

According to the show, they took the train on March 29th from Washington DC (presumably WAS) to the PHL station, after a day-game against the Capitals and the day before a day-game against the Flyers. The show said they chartered a three car train, and they show a 'First Class Conference Car' and a business class car, which I believe is the 1x2 business/cafe cars usually on the over-night NE Regional. They didn't specifically mention if they had an entire train or if they had their own cars added to a normal NE Regional, but I suspect given their scheduling needs they had their own train/engines.

I figured some here would find this interesting. Does anyone know how common taking the train is for sports teams? It seems like a good option for the short trips, when a charter flight is so short and the train stations are often close to arenas and team hotels. I had never heard of or seen a 'First Class Conference Car'.

It is common for the major league hockey, basketball, baseball teams to charter special trains for trips between WAS, BAL, PHL, NYP. They may not do so for every trip between the cities depending on the distance and the team's schedule, but it is routine. It might have been unusual to the Boston Bruins players, because Amtrak doesn't have much flexibility to provide charter trains for the BOS to NYP segment.
The conference car is presumably the converted #9800 Metroliner which can be chartered.

 

[Karl1459]

Given where (on the NEC at least) rail is time competitive vs air or road, and there is a supply of railcars available, and timeslots on the rail available, the extra comforts of rail travel make this almost a no brainer. Even if costs were a little higher. I remember some other posts of other pro teams using Amtrak.

I expect the word will get around the pro teams and train travel will become very common Boston-NewYork-Philladelphia-Baltimore-WashingtonDC.

Portland-Seattle-VancouverBC is a possibility if those cities add a pro team so they can actually play each other. (There are a LOT of Seahawk fans who take the Cascades to SEA from PDX-VAN in already). Chicago-Detroit might be a possibility when the track improvements are finished, especially if Amtrak is able to dispatch most or all of the route, and encourage/assure there is available transportation from the train station to the venue.

From a marketing standpoint, one opportunity is to recoginize that a special trip to see a pro game may be the best way to get a potential customer onto the train and introduce them to the benefits of train travel. I know Amtrak has done some work in this area but I am not sure if they have the schedule, or will schedule special trains, to serve the after game fans back to their home city.

 

[amamba]

Yes I have definitely heard of other NEC sports teams taking amtrak - baseball and basketball for sure. Not sure about football, though.

I found this article about the yankees getting stuck on amtrak and having to switch to buses two years ago.

http://www.myfoxny.com/story/19775415/amtrak-problems-strand-new-york-yankees

 

[afigg]

Portland-Seattle-VancouverBC is a possibility if those cities add a pro team so they can actually play each other. (There are a LOT of Seahawk fans who take the Cascades to SEA from PDX-VAN in already). Chicago-Detroit might be a possibility when the track improvements are finished, especially if Amtrak is able to dispatch most or all of the route, and encourage/assure there is available transportation from the train station to the venue.

From a marketing standpoint, one opportunity is to recoginize that a special trip to see a pro game may be the best way to get a potential customer onto the train and introduce them to the benefits of train travel. I know Amtrak has done some work in this area but I am not sure if they have the schedule, or will schedule special trains, to serve the after game fans back to their home city.

Both the CHI-DET and CHI-STL corridors are getting upgraded to close to car competitive trip times. The problem with both of them is capacity to readily add special charter trains. Amtrak may own or control most of the CHI-DET route in Michigan, but there is a lot of single tracking in MI and the the route use NS tracks in Indiana. If the proposed South of the Lake dedicated passenger tracks are built from CHI and through IN and a lot of double tracking is done in MI, then it would be easier to run special trains. But so long as the route extensively uses freight tracks, which includes the Cascades corridor, Amtrak would have to negotiate with and pay the freight railroads to run a special charter train.
A sports team traveling between CHI-DET or CHI-STL could charter extra cars to be added to a scheduled train. Maybe we will see that in a few years, but the schedule would have to meet the needs of the sports team, so it could be a rare thing.

If/when the CA HSR system gets built to its full planned extent of service to LA, SF-Bay Area, San Diego, and Sacramento, special charter trains or booking cars on scheduled HSR trains is likely to become the common travel method for the MLB, NHL, NBA teams traveling between those cities. Would not just be the California teams, but the visiting east coast teams that played a game or series in 1 CA city and the next game or series is in another CA city. MLB usually schedule west coast trips for the east coast teams to play all the west coast teams on a single extended road trip (and vice versa).

[clicked too soon] As for sport fans, they routinely take the NEC to follow their home team to games in other cities on the NEC. I was walking through NYP a few years ago to take an early evening train back to DC and suddenly encountered large swarms of people wearing Washington Capital shirts. I thought for a moment I was in DC in a Metro station encountering fans on their way to Verizon Center. But it was a wave of Cap fans who had arrived on a train from DC who were making their way up to Madison Square Garden for a NY Rangers - Washington Capitol game.

 

[Shawn Ryu]

What is this "hockey" you guys are speaking of.

The season's over, no hockey until next year.

Capitals fan?

 

[Railroad Bill]

All I can say is "Go Blue Jackets". Yes, Ohio does have a hockey team

 

[battalion51]

To my knowledge it has become fairly common practice for teams doing the WAS-PHL, PHL-NY, or WAS-NY travel to take the train because they get downtown to downtown service faster than they can with getting to the airports outside of the downtown core and then having to get "in line" for a take off/landing slot. The only other city pair I can think of where this might make sense is for baseball teams between LA and SD.

 

[PRR 60]

To my knowledge it has become fairly common practice for teams doing the WAS-PHL, PHL-NY, or WAS-NY travel to take the train because they get downtown to downtown service faster than they can with getting to the airports outside of the downtown core and then having to get "in line" for a take off/landing slot. The only other city pair I can think of where this might make sense is for baseball teams between LA and SD.

The alternative for team travel on short legs is bus, not air. That is certainly the case for Philly teams heading to New York or Washington. Due to the need to take a bus to and from the Amtrak station, the train can take considerably longer door-to-door than simply taking a bus all the way, particularly late evening. For that reason, the train is typically used after day games and bus after night games.