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130 bi-level cars ordered for AMTRAK useage

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<p>[quote user="Paul Milenkovic"]</p> <div style="clear:both;">I heard of some high, airline-level load factors on the TGV trains in France.</div> <p>But I am in the camp that there are "engineering" limits on load factor without making the service inconvenient, that people cannot travel at the times they want.</p> <p>For instance, the Hiawatha Service is a success story in terms of frequency of service and a burgeoning ridership, perhaps helped by the mess Illinois made in upgrading all of its toll roads at one time.</p> <p>On the other hand, it seems that the increase in ridership has been accomodated by adding cars to the train and that the overall load factor remains below 50 percent.  What I think is happening is that it is capacity constrained at rush hour as the Hiawatha train is a de facto commuter train for many people who need to get between Milwaukee and Chicago on a daily basis, but it is not cost effective to switch cars out of the consist for the off peak times, hence a low off-peak load factor and a middling overall load factor.</p> <p>The other thing to do is a differential pricing scheme, where you charge more for rush hour and less for off peak.  Funny thing is that on the pre-Metra C&NW, you got a deal on a monthly pass, which I believe was for riding all the way to Northwestern Station (now Ogilvie Center) whereas there was no monthly pass if you got out at Davis Street station in Evanston and no deals for riding outside of rush hour.  So they were discounting rush hour and charging more for off peak for some reason or another.</p> <p>In my opinion, seemingly low load factors do not mean that the train isn't popular or that no one is riding it.  In fact, it may be more economical to keep passenger consists as unit trainsets and trail empty cars rather than to switch, whereas with airlines, they don't form airplanes into "air trains' but instead dispatch different sizes of planes on different routes at different times using massive "linear program" optimization computer programs, where everything works like a Swiss watch until you have one mechanical breakdown or weather delay in some distant city and everything goes to pot.  So I wouldn't disrespect Amtrak on load factor, and I take such realistic rail load factors into account in making energy efficiency comparisons.</p> <div style="clear:both;">[/quote]</div> <p>The Trinity Railway Express adjusts the size of its trains throughout the day. By not running the cars empty it is saving maintenance on them.  But then the TRE is operated by Herzog, which understands a thing or two about watching out for the bottom line.  </p>
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