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The pro-forma numbers for the Empire Builder show that approximately 87,000 passengers will book sleeping car space in FY12. The trains offer 102,200 to 122,640 rooms or 204,200 to 245,280 spaces for sale during the year.  The difference depends on whether the train has a transition sleeper to Seattle or whether it uses a portion of one of the sleepers for the crew. I understand that the train has three sleepers to Seattle and one sleeper to Portland.  That was the case when I rode the train two years ago.  And I rode it in the first week of December, which is clearly not the high season.   Assuming one passenger per room, the average room load factor would be would be approximately 85 per cent to 71 per cent whilst the average space load factors would be approximately 42 to 35 per cent. The actual occupancy rate would be somewhere between the low and high estimates. The overall load factor for the Builder was 60.9 per cent through August 2012 vs. 62.8 per cent for the long distance trains as a whole.  In FY11 the overall load factor for the Builder was 57.5 per cent.   Given these numbers, whilst it may be a good decision to add cars to the Builder during the high season(s), it does not appear that they would be required for most of the year, which means that they would have to be stored and, therefore, would not earn any revenue whilst idle.   The key question is whether the incremental or marginal cost of the additional space (coach and sleeper) would be offset by the incremental revenues. I suspect that management has looked at the issue and decided that  it cannot justify the additional space. This post has been corrected and updated.
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