Rail Fares, Then vs. Now

[Anderson]

On a lark (I get bored easily, and data is always fun to play with), I decided to do a bit of compare-and-contrast on fares from the end of the private passenger railroad era and now. I picked the ACL's service from the NEC to Florida. I wish to note that I picked this line in particular because it remained in the black right up until A-Day, and I suspect that it did Amtrak well for those first few years as well; additionally, it was readily available, and the service has directly comparable service at the present.

Pulling from a table of ACL fares from 1967 (accessible here: http://www.streamlin...aclrr196706.pdf ), I ran a set of fares from Orlando to four cities: Richmond, VA; Washington, DC; Philadelphia, PA; and New York, NY. I omitted Boston and Chicago because of the necessary train changes in place now (Chicago, in particular, is not at all comparable in terms of service allowed). I also compared the following:

Coach vs. Coach

Pullman Roomette vs. Amtrak Roomette

Pullman Bedroom vs. Amtrak Bedroom

I declined to include the more "advanced" Pullman accommodations (Bedroom Suite, Compartment, and Drawing Room, all of which which don't have a clear analogue nowadays) and the Family Bedroom (which I can't clearly peg the analogue of before), and of course if I mismatched, feel free to let me know. I include the Pullman surcharge in the sleeper fares from 1967. Because Excel doesn't translate in here very well, my table will be from notepad, with the following columns:

(1) Station Codes (i.e. ORL-WAS)

(2) ACL quoted fare (i.e. $27.90)

(3) ACL fare in 2009 terms as per the CPI (multiplier of roughly 6.43)

(4) ACL fare in 2009 terms as per the Consumer Bundle (multiplier of roughly 6.80)

(5) 2011 Amtrak Low Bucket (per Amsnag)

(6) 2011 Amtrak High Bucket (per Amsnag)

In Coach:

......(1)...........(2)...........(3)...........(4)...........(5)...........(6)

ORL-NYP...$38.55...$248.00...$262.00...$122.00...$272.00

ORL-PHL...$34.29...$220.48...$233.17...$122.00...$272.00

ORL-WAS...$27.90...$179.40...$189.72...$101.00...$225.00

ORL-RVR...$24.06...$154.71...$163.61...$101.00...$225.00

In a Pullman Roomette/Amtrak Roomette:

......(1)...........(2)...........(3)...........(4)...........(5)...........(6)

ORL-NYP...$80.01...$514.46...$544.07...$317.00...$631.00

ORL-PHL...$72.16...$463.99...$490.69...$317.00...$631.00

ORL-WAS...$57.84...$371.91...$393.31...$296.00...$583.00

ORL-RVR...$50.12...$322.27...$340.82...$280.00...$541.00

In a Pullman Bedroom/Amtrak Bedroom:

......(1)...........(2)...........(3)...........(4)...........(5)...........(6)

ORL-NYP...$95.96...$617.02...$652.53...$630.00...$1,151.00

ORL-PHL...$87.31...$561.40...$593.71...$630.00...$1,151.00

ORL-WAS...$79.64...$512.09...$541.55...$609.00...$1,130.00

ORL-RVR...$60.67...$390.11...$412.56...$604.00...$1,116.00

A point of note is that you could save between 12% and 20% on the rail fare by booking a round trip with the ACL, with a six month cap on the return date (the Pullman charge was not reduced accordingly). Amtrak, to my knowledge, has no such analogue; this combination would reduce the coach fares to the following table:

......(1)...........(2)...........(3)...........(4)...........(5)...........(6)

ORL-NYP...$72.28...$464.76...$491.50...$244.00...$544.00

ORL-PHL...$63.76...$409.98...$433.57...$244.00...$544.00

ORL-WAS...$50.98...$327.80...$346.66...$202.00...$450.00

ORL-RVR...$43.35...$278.74...$294.78...$202.00...$450.00

So...which is cheaper? In coach, obviously a low-bucket Amtrak fare beats almost all ACL fares (though the round trip ORL-RVR fare comes respectably close, and the middle buckets probably start losing out to this one) while a high-bucket Amtrak fare loses to a fixed ACL fare. On the Pullman accommodations (what we all dream of when talking about these trains), roomettes win out with the Amtrak fares while the bedrooms go to the Pullman folks. Note that I am assuming single occupancy; double occupancy probably closes this gap somewhat, as a bit more of the Pullman cost is "fare" rather than "accommodation" charges.

One factor that distorts the structure at the present is the fact that Amtrak loses additional pricing power north of Washington, while the ACL was still able to hike charges as you went further north. This is the main reason that the modern Amtrak numbers look better the further up the NEC you go (though much of those charges presumably went to the Pennsy, who would have been carrying the cars past WAS).

(Edited to adjust the Amtrak fares because of an operator error using Amsnag)

 

[Edgefan]

Very nice Anderson! I have a folder full of spreadsheets containing data that probably is only interesting to me. :lol: You have shown that a low bucket sleeper fare is a better value today that pre-Amtrak, even better when you figure meal service is provided in the price of the fare although not quite to the standard of a Super Chief meal of days gone by. Love your data and the way you think! Now, where did I put that time machine.....

 

[Anderson]

Edgefan,

You're making me wonder what's in them...

Another interesting table that I came up with: B&O fares, WAS-CHI, 1963, which I'm still fiddling with.

Finally, the tables above are revised. Silly Anderson forgot to add the accommodation charges and the low-bucket fares, as he thought Amsnag did this for him.

The revision is actually quite interesting in its effects: An Amtrak coach ticket or roomette on a low bucket is cheaper; an Amtrak bedroom? Not so much.

 

[ghodux]

I have not booked a train trip in almost a year but was shocked to see the price of today's coach/sleeper tickets....was there a huge rate increase that I missed out on? I just looked at a sleeper between EUG and CHI for this November and it was over $500. It does not appear that there are anymore low buckets? Has the pricing system changed?

 

[Anderson]

I have not booked a train trip in almost a year but was shocked to see the price of today's coach/sleeper tickets....was there a huge rate increase that I missed out on? I just looked at a sleeper between EUG and CHI for this November and it was over $500. It does not appear that there are anymore low buckets? Has the pricing system changed?

The low buckets are selling out. I'm going to discuss this in a post shortly, but Amtrak is slamming into capacity limits in a lot of cases, and they are moving rooms around on the bucket charts to compensate.

I don't know what days you're looking at traveling, but if you're willing to go up to Seattle, the numbers on the SEA sleeper look a bit better than the PDX one. But yes, some of those trains are starting to either have their low buckets get kicked or sell seats months in advance. My emotions on this are mixed: On the one hand, I like quality travel for less; on the other hand, what this indicates to me is that Amtrak is experiencing demand growth, and I'm genuinely glad to see slam-full trains on a regular basis for the first time in, quite probably, decades.

 

[dlagrua]

Good assembladge of data. However, if you look back to just about every private run RR the add on cost of a roomette was almost always a fraction of the coach fare, not 2-5x what is is on Amtrak. They also didn't jimmy around with the fares with a bucket system based on demand back them. The price was the price that you paid. The only exception may have been the double bedrooms for which there were few. This might have been the true first class of the day.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

Good assembladge of data. However, if you look back to just about every private run RR the add on cost of a roomette was almost always a fraction of the coach fare, not 2-5x what is is on Amtrak. They also didn't jimmy around with the fares with a bucket system based on demand back them. The price was the price that you paid. The only exception may have been the double bedrooms for which there were few. This might have been the true first class of the day.

Diagra, I am confused by your last two sentences. If I am misunderstanding you, my apologies.

You seem to say that a double bedroom was the true first class of the day. Actually a compartment is larger than that and a drawing room larger still. The very largest room, as Master Room, was only found on the Broadway Limited and the Crescent so far as I can remember.

Maybe you are saying something about the fare structure which I am not catching on to.