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<p>[quote user="blue streak 1"]  </p> <blockquote class="quote"> <div class="quote-user">Sam1</div> <div class="quote-content"> <div class="quote-header"> </div> <p>In FY14 the Cardinal carried 8,602 sleeping car passengers, which was a 25 per cent increase over FY13.</p> <p>Assuming 28 passengers per sleeper, the Cardinal had 8,736 sleeping spaces for sale in FY 14 if it ran one sleeper per train.  The occupancy rate would have averaged 98.4 per cent.  If it had two sleeping cars during FY14, the occupancy rate would have been 49.2 per cent.  If it had one sleeper for half of FY14 and two sleepers for the other half, as has been suggested, the occupancy rate would have averaged 65.6 per cent.</p> <p>If the Cardinal  had only one sleeper in FY14, it appears that it could have sold additional sleeping car capacity. But if it had two or 1.5 sleepers for FY14, it may have had excess capacity.  How much of the additional space could have been sold is problematic.    </p> <p><strong>u were close but no cigar. Actually 1.25 sleepers.  If you check Amtrak's performance reports for July, Aug, Sep table 3.6 you will see those were the months of 2 sleepers.  October 2014 also had 2 sleepers then back to one table 3.5. </strong>[/quote]</p> </div> </blockquote> <p>You got me!</p> <p>Amtrak's Monthly Performance Reports (MPR) don't shown the number of cars in a train.</p> <p>Presumably, you took the number of sleeping car passengers (989) from Table 3.6, Sept 2014 MPR; assumed that they rode end points to end points, and concluded that one car could not have accommodated them.</p> <p>In September 2014 the Cardinal had 12 departures from New York and 13 from Chicago. Assuming 28 spaces per car (assumes one economy room is occupied by the car attendant), it would have had a total of 700 spaces for the month.  It would have been short 289 spaces or an average of 12 spaces per train.  </p> <p>Some of the passengers probably did not stay on the car for the entire trip. A passenger could have boarded the train in Washington for Indianpolis. Another passenger could have used the space from Indianpolis to Chicago. If this were true, the deficiency in spaces would have been less than would have been the case under the end point to end point assumption. </p> <p>Your calculations and conclusions probably are correct.  Do you have an independent source to verify that the Cardinal ran with more than two sleeping cars during the months cited?</p> <p>Presumably the extra cars were taken off the Silver Service trains.  If they met the need for the Cardinal without causing a sleeping car shortage on the Silver Service trains, then it would appear that Amtrak met the need without buying more sleeping cars.</p>
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