What exactly is Amtrak's damage with route planning?

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Bjartmarr

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Warning: if you don't want to read my rant, now is the time to move to the next thread.

I've been trying to plan my summer travel using Amtrak.com, and all the "you can't get there from here" notices are sure frustrating.

How much of this braindamage is an artifact of Amtrak's "Heritage" route planning system (which I understand still runs on steam power), and how much of it is Amtrak Operations being stubborn about overnight layovers?

And why is Amtrak Operations such a pill about overnight layovers, anyways? Amtrak needs all the money it can get, and presenting me with ridiculous, uncomfortable, roundabout trips when comfortable, direct ones exist is (to quote Jon Stewart) hurting America. Sure, somebody like me will plot and scheme and force the route that I want, but most people will see "You can't get there from here" or a 6 hour overnight bus ride and decide to fly or drive instead. And that costs Amtrak money.

Here are some of the straightforward, reasonable trips that Amtrak doesn't want me to book:

  • LAX-CHI via the CS and CZ: It's fine with Amtrak if I detour all the way to PDX and take the EB. Or I can take a horrible surfliner/bus overnight combo instead of the CS. But a comfortable bed in EMY? Of course not.
  • PDX-MCA: No can do! But you can do SEA-MCA...which is THE SAME TRAIN!
  • LAX-MCA is, of course, out of the question. Why do you want to go to MCA anyway? Wouldn't you prefer a nice trip to PDX?
What I find so frustrating is that Amtrak has solved the difficult problem (that being running hundreds of trains all across the USA on a daily basis), and then they sabotage themselves by totally failing at the easy problem (telling people how to ride them).

Also, I want to book LAX-MCA with AGR points, and it took me an hour to figure out that I have to go to SPK and then spend fifty bucks on a bus ride to MCA. Makes me want to abuse a NOL-CHI-PDX-LAX redemption just out of spite. And yell at someone.

Rant over.
 
Maybe I'm a little dense this morning, but I don't understand your problem with booking the trip you listed first: LAX to EMY on the CS and then (the next morning) EMY to CHI on the CZ. I just successfully previewed bookings for both coach and roomette with a start date of 23 Feb 2015 using Amtraks' Multi-City method. Didn't actually purchase any of them, however.

I'm just curious - what did I do that differed from your apparently failed method?
 
What the OP is saying is that if you input LAX to CHI on the "From A to B" screen (not the multi-city screen), you will not see the EMY option. But you will get other choices that do not have an overnight off the train.
 
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Oh, now I see. Well to me, that's perfectly understandable and is to be expected. Because consider how many different ways there are to get from, say, NYP to EMY. There's actually probably 20 or more, but when I poke in NYP to EMY only 11 seem to appear. Sounds to me like the OP is simply not using Amtrak's system properly. If a multi-city trip is wanted, just use the Multi-City mode. That seems to be what it's there for - to me, at least. How's some stupid computer to know what the customer really wants unless the customer tells it by poking it in? Just my 2¢ worth.
 
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niemi24s said:
Oh, now I see. Well to me, that's perfectly understandable and is to be expected. Because consider how many different ways there are to get from, say, NYP to EMY. There's actually probably 20 or more, but when I poke in NYP to EMY only 11 seem to appear. Sounds to me like the OP is simply not using Amtrak's system properly. If a multi-city trip is wanted, just use the Multi-City mode. That seems to be what it's there for - to me, at least. How's some stupid computer to know what the customer really wants unless the customer tells it by poking it in? Just my 2¢ worth.
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I don't expect the computer to know what I want. But I do expect it to present the several most reasonable options. Often, one of the most reasonable options includes an overnight. The computer should present that option. Not doing so gives a naive traveler the false impression that the routing including the overnight is not available. (LAX-CHI isn't a perfect example of this, because a naive traveler would just take the SWC which is a good route. LAX-SLC is a better example.)

My friend recently told me that he wanted to drive instead of take the train, because when he punched in the two cities (western cities; I forgot which ones) it told him the shortest route was 60-some hours. (It was routing him through CHI.) It was totally reasonable (but wrong) for him to assume that this was the shortest/best routing, because that's how every other routing system on the planet works.

If "using the system properly" means that you have to know exactly what itinerary you want and force the issue using multi-city, then the system is broken and needs to be fixed. It's the year 2008, We Have the Technology. It is not reasonable to expect people who just want to go from A to B to study Amtrak's schedules and plan their route on their own.
 
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The thing is if it's an AGR redemption, they can only book what comes up on their screen when they enter"A" to "B". And if "a regular passenger (or a first timer) wants to go from BHM to CHI and the Crescent and CONO come up, they may choose that, but when they get to NOL they're told they have to pay for the hotel. They may not be a very camper and say "Never again".
 
Bjartmarr said:
If "using the system properly" means that you have to know exactly what itinerary you want ...
Click to expand...
I think knowing what itinerary I want is a good thing.

If I want to go from point "A" to point "B", why would the computer suggest I go via points "C" or "D" to reach "B"?

Or, maybe I misremembered the question.
 
the_traveler said:
And if "a regular passenger (or a first timer) wants to go from BHM to CHI and the Crescent and CONO come up, they may choose that, but when they get to NOL they're told they have to pay for the hotel. They may not be a very camper and say "Never again".
Click to expand...
Of course springing the overnight on them as a surprise in the middle of their trip would be a very dumb move. I thought that that went without saying.

But the system could easily inform the buyer at reservation time that their itinerary includes spending the night in an intermediate city. Or it could do something even more clever: it could offer to book the passenger a room at a station-adjacent hotel. Pax would have to select a hotel, or specifically select "I will get my own hotel", in order to complete the purchase. Hello, revenue opportunity.
 
It doesn't say "go from A to B via C and D" but it may offer you to go from CHI to LAX via SPK and PDX. That would be all on Amtrak with no overnight hotels. What the OP wanted was to go from LAX to CHI with an overnight hotel stay in EMY.

How do you consider it "revenue opportunity if on Amtrak it's (not the actual fare) $50 BHM-NOL-MEM (but the passenger would have to pay Hilton or Hyatt $300 for the overnight stay) or $325 for BHM-WAS-CHI-MEM on Amtrak? :huh:
 
the_traveler said:
How do you consider it "revenue opportunity if on Amtrak it's (not the actual fare) $50 BHM-NOL-MEM (but the passenger would have to pay Hilton or Hyatt $300 for the overnight stay) or $325 for BHM-WAS-CHI-MEM on Amtrak? :huh:
Click to expand...
It's a revenue opportunity because hotels will likely be willing to pay Amtrak for directing customers their way.

Oddly enough, Arrow is giving me BHM-NOL-MEM with an 18-hour overnight layover (!!!) for $103. That's the first time I have ever seen Arrow return a scheduled overnight layover.

To answer your implied question, yes, Amtrak may collect less revenue if people take short, direct, cheap routes instead of roundabout expensive ones. But the increased convenience will lead to increased ridership and customer satisfaction, both of which are worth far more than the fares of the miniscule number of people who book 3-night Amtrak trips when a 3-hour bus ride is available.
 
Do you really want to go from LAX to MCA? Because that should be do-able. SEA --> MCA is listed as a single trip, but the #28 connections from PDX are not offered. You can't connect from LAX via SEA because there's an overnight involved. If you are willing to do the overnight on your own dime, you should be able to talk an AGR agent into giving you the trip.

-or-

Any connection on the EB, from SPK on east, that originates in SEA should also be offered originating in PDX. If it's not, that's a simple "this has not yet been entered into Arrow" situation. You need to go to flyertalk and message the AGR Insider to get the connections added.
 
Fully understand your point about options, but "reasonable" ones are subjective and therefore involve judgement. And can we really expect that from a pretty much automated system? I, for one, don't. But allow me to expand upon your naive traveler idea a bit. Pretend that one such person strolls into in the library with money to burn, a yen for train travel, lives in Chicago and merely wants to spend some days looking out the train window and end up back home. After a bit of fumbling with the computer (and lots of assistance from the librarian) the naive traveler enters CHI in both boxes of Amtrak's ticket window and promptly gets told "The departure and arrival points may not be the same". Believing that if he leaves home on Amtrak, Amtrak cannot bring him back home our naive traveler departs dejected without calling Amtrak and walks right past a travel agency.

Is it "reasonable" to expect Amtrak's pile of P-N junctions to offer up all (or at least some) possible routes for our naive traveler to pick from? I don't think so. And maybe this is where a travel agent (or the good folks on this forum) earn their keep.

But being fully retired and living up North in the cold & snow, I may not be a good judge of such matters simply because I spend a lot of my idle time (and it's now mostly idle) at the keyboard making up and taking train trips. Daydreaming while looking at this route map cobbled together that shows most of the possibilities North of the US-mexico border: http://s129.photobucket.com/user/niemi24s/media/travel/MapAMTRAKSystemBWef.jpg.html Then, after a "dream trip" is selected, I'll fritter away more time (actually MUCH more time) getting a feeling for the scenery along its route with Google Earth and USGS Topographic Maps. Wife says I'm pretty good at it - frittering away time, that is! :)
 
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oregon pioneer said:
Do you really want to go from LAX to MCA? Because that should be do-able. SEA --> MCA is listed as a single trip, but the #28 connections from PDX are not offered. You can't connect from LAX via SEA because there's an overnight involved. If you are willing to do the overnight on your own dime, you should be able to talk an AGR agent into giving you the trip.
Click to expand...
I do want to go from LAX to MCA. Or, at least, I might. Possibly BOI or GVI. I'm planning a train-bike trip around Idaho, so I'm trying to figure out the best arrival city, but it's hard when most requests return "no service between those points".

I was aware that I could go ask AGR Insider for help putting in the connections, or call up AGR and beg; that doesn't help me much in this planning stage, though, where the real obstacle is that I have to manually figure out the routings. That area is approximately equidistant from three major train-thruway jump-off points (SLC, PDX, and SPK), and it wasn't clear at first which thruway buses went to which destinations.

And thank you for listing my options and helping to plan my trip, that was very nice of you.
 
niemi24s said:
Fully understand your point about options, but "reasonable" ones are subjective and therefore involve judgement. And can we really expect that from a pretty much automated system? I, for one, don't.
Click to expand...
Google Maps does a pretty excellent job of driving directions, and that's a MUCH harder problem than a little old Amtrak route finder, due to the enormous number of driveable roads available compared with the tiny number of rideable trains.

So yes, I do think an automated system can be programmed to recognize that a forced overnight MIGHT be preferable to a crazy bus ride, and offer the traveler options.

"Excursion" routings like CHI-CHI are so totally not what I'm talking about in this thread.
 
If someone wants to travel between point “A” and point “B” and see points “C” and “D” along the way,
why not buy a USA Rail Pass?
I just think if someone enters into a computer that you want to go from point “A” to point “B”,
that’s the info one would receive from a computer.

Maybe if someone wants suggestions on alternate routes one would benefit from a travel agent?
 
niemi24s said:
Fully understand your point about options, but "reasonable" ones are subjective and therefore involve judgement. And can we really expect that from a pretty much automated system? I, for one, don't. But allow me to expand upon your naive traveler idea a bit. Pretend that one such person strolls into in the library with money to burn, a yen for train travel, lives in Chicago and merely wants to spend some days looking out the train window and end up back home. After a bit of fumbling with the computer (and lots of assistance from the librarian) the naive traveler enters CHI in both boxes of Amtrak's ticket window and promptly gets told "The departure and arrival points may not be the same". Believing that if he leaves home on Amtrak, Amtrak cannot bring him back home our naive traveler departs dejected without calling Amtrak and walks right past a travel agency.
Click to expand...
I would hope the librarian would be smart enough to tell the traveler that he needs to click the "Round Trip" tab. We go to graduate school for a reason. ;)
 
Bjartmarr said:
oregon pioneer said:
Do you really want to go from LAX to MCA? Because that should be do-able. SEA --> MCA is listed as a single trip, but the #28 connections from PDX are not offered. You can't connect from LAX via SEA because there's an overnight involved. If you are willing to do the overnight on your own dime, you should be able to talk an AGR agent into giving you the trip.
Click to expand...
I do want to go from LAX to MCA. Or, at least, I might. Possibly BOI or GVI. I'm planning a train-bike trip around Idaho, so I'm trying to figure out the best arrival city, but it's hard when most requests return "no service between those points".

I was aware that I could go ask AGR Insider for help putting in the connections, or call up AGR and beg; that doesn't help me much in this planning stage, though, where the real obstacle is that I have to manually figure out the routings. That area is approximately equidistant from three major train-thruway jump-off points (SLC, PDX, and SPK), and it wasn't clear at first which thruway buses went to which destinations.

And thank you for listing my options and helping to plan my trip, that was very nice of you.
Click to expand...
I live in eastern Oregon, so I am familiar with the "you can't get there from here" problem. Since both MCA via SPK, and BOI via PDX, involve an uncomfortable overnight on a bus, or sitting up several hours in the SPK station in the middle of the night, let me offer this alternative:

  • Take the CS from LAX to BND, arriving 11:10am
  • Take the High Desertpoint bus (yes, it's the same company that contracts the little bus from the CS at CMO, to BND, but this is not an Amtrak contract route, so you'll have to pay $48) from BND to Ontario, OR, leaving BND 1:40pm, arriving Ontario 4:40pm.
This at least gets you to the Idaho state line without the uncomfortable overnight, and I believe you can pick up a Greyhound bus from Ontario to BOI in the evening (though I am not sure it is the same stop).
 
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When saying the following...

niemi24s said:
. . . consider how many different ways there are to get from, say, NYP to EMY. There's actually probably 20 or more, but when I poke in NYP to EMY only 11 seem to appear.
Click to expand...
..I grossly underestimated the possibilities. Probably more than 20? It is to laugh! Spent some time with copies of the route map from Post 13 and broke the NYP to EMY routes down into those from NYP to CHI and then those from CHI to EMY. Without going through the same place twice I found:

• 15 different routes from NYP to CHI

• 10 different routes from CHI to EMY

• 15 X 10 = 150 different routes from NYP to EMY (not including any I may have overlooked!)

That's 139 more than the measley 11 that Amtrak's computer churned up for me a few hours ago. If Amtrak's computer could churn up ALL the possibilities it would eliminate any subjectivity because it's all simply a matter of connecting all the dots, making it a subject of math and logic. Which route of the 150 is a reasonable one would then be up to the customer. But, is that in itself reasonable - or simply information overload? Dunno, but it's fun to do - makes it kinda like a puzzle. And I just love a good puzzle! :)

Cheers

P.S.: If you really, truly wanted make an expedition out of getting from NYP to EMY (without going through the same place twice) book this - multi-city, of course: NYP, NHV, BOS, SPG, ALB, BUF, CLR, PGH, PHL, WAS, RVM, SSM, SAV, RGH, GRO, CVS, CHI, GFK, SPK, SEA, PDX, SAC, GBB, KCY, STL, FTW, SAS, LAX, EMY. Then there's the possibility of adding VIA Rail into the mix!
 
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This thread has the most abbreviated stations of any I've read here. Must we all talk shop now?
 
Ummm, about the route between Grangeville and McCall: You do know about White Bird Hill? Going down it (southbound) is terrifying even in a car. You can smell the smoked brakes from the guy in front of you. If you are on a bicycle, take the old road and take it easy. Here's what it's like going uphill.

OP said:

I'm planning a train-bike trip around Idaho...
 
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It does get annoying, doesn't it? But most folks seem to use them and it does save time and space. Most station abbreviations are just the ICAO designation for the town's airport. Some are kind of intuitive, but many aren't. Help yourself along with the mess of 'em I just posted by printing a copy of the route map I linked in Post #13 - it's got all the towns and abbreviations I've used so far (I hope!)
 
Bjartmarr said:
Of course springing the overnight on them as a surprise in the middle of their trip would be a very dumb move. I thought that that went without saying.

But the system could easily inform the buyer at reservation time that their itinerary includes spending the night in an intermediate city.
Click to expand...
People are illiterate idiots, and even if you put it in bold flashing letters wouldn't realize that they had an overnight layover. Not offering overnight connections is a good move, for those smart enough to realize it, there's the multi-city router. Doesn't help with AGR awards, but Amtrak's not in the business of enabling people crazy long redemptions.
 
RyanS said:
Bjartmarr said:
Of course springing the overnight on them as a surprise in the middle of their trip would be a very dumb move. I thought that that went without saying.

But the system could easily inform the buyer at reservation time that their itinerary includes spending the night in an intermediate city.
Click to expand...
People are illiterate idiots, and even if you put it in bold flashing letters wouldn't realize that they had an overnight layover. Not offering overnight connections is a good move, for those smart enough to realize it, there's the multi-city router. Doesn't help with AGR awards, but Amtrak's not in the business of enabling people crazy long redemptions.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Most people want the shortest route, so putting that first is good. If the shortest route is not overnight, why would you put in a route that requires an overnight?

There may be a couple sales lot, but nowhere near how much ill will would be built when someone doesn't realize that they chose an overnight option and expects Amtrak to foot the bill.
 
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