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As I pointed out in my post, there are days when a train may sell out. And clearly the load factor on some segments of a run, e.g. Chicago to Minneapolis on the Empire Builder may be higher than the load factor west of Minneapolis. In fact, based on my experience, which consists of taking the train from Milwaukee to Portland, it is. The calculations are based on passenger miles measured from end point to end point.  If a train sells out between points A and B, the load factor will be well below average between points B and C, assuming the total trip has a low factor below 100 per cent.  Amtrak publishes end point to end point load factor information for its trains. It has segment information, based on tickets lifted and equipment used, but the information is not readily available to the public.  Undoubtedly, it is possible for a train like the Auto Train to be turning away sleeping car passengers whilst having ample coach space, and the over all figures would not show this information.  I am sure Amtrak has this information.  If the data showed that there was a serious shortage of sleeper space on the Auto Train, I think management would probably have repaired and returned to service the idle sleepers.  Even Amtrak's management knows how to generate revenue.  I was only addressing the need for additional Superliner cars. Schedulers would have to know the configuration of any substitute equipment since passengers are guaranteed space on these trains. It would be relatively easy to plug this information into a computer database and generate quickly the load factors. The .85 per cent, which is insignificant, although indicative of a direction that is accelerating because of the recession, was for the fiscal year.  The 3.6 per cent decline is a May FY08 to May FY09 comparison for the months only.    If I was the President of Amtrak and a subordinate manager told me that we needed to ramp up the number of Superliner cars, because they have an average load factor of approximately 55 per cent, I would want a lot more information.  But then if I was the President of Amtrak, I would run it like a business, which means that an economic (financial) case would need to be made for the additional equipment.  Too often, I suspect, Amtrak makes decisions for political rather than business reasons, in large part because it is a creature of our political system.
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