ACY As I've suggested several times in the "Food Service Losses" section, a diner has to be filled, with several dinner seating's, in order to justify its cost. . Reducing service to minimal levels just seems like a good way to drive away business. People don't ride long distance trains with the intention of spending 2 or 3 days eating fast junk food for the entire trip. What I'm suggesting is that the amount of money the passenger spends IN THE DINER does not have to be extremely high if a portion of his ticket price is apportioned to cover the diner's "losses". That way, the "pain" of the high price won't be so evident to him that it scares him away from the idea of eating there at all. The diner doesn't have to necessarily make a profit, but losses can be kept to a minimum with a little creativity in pricing of the tickets and the food. Tom
As I've suggested several times in the "Food Service Losses" section, a diner has to be filled, with several dinner seating's, in order to justify its cost. . Reducing service to minimal levels just seems like a good way to drive away business. People don't ride long distance trains with the intention of spending 2 or 3 days eating fast junk food for the entire trip.
What I'm suggesting is that the amount of money the passenger spends IN THE DINER does not have to be extremely high if a portion of his ticket price is apportioned to cover the diner's "losses". That way, the "pain" of the high price won't be so evident to him that it scares him away from the idea of eating there at all. The diner doesn't have to necessarily make a profit, but losses can be kept to a minimum with a little creativity in pricing of the tickets and the food.
Tom
1.. All passengers that travel for say ( 6 hours or more ) would be elgible for a meal at no cost.
2. Lesser distances would be eligible for a discount or free in the lounge.
3. Sleeper passengers of course free
4. How to control ? Ticket stubs or printed tickets could have an identification stripe that would designate the passenger's eligibility. That point of service scan would prevent multiple use age.
TOM several problems:
5. There would be a need to have extra diner personnel to handle extended hours.
6. Observations seem to indicate that there is not storage space for more than 2 seatings Your Auto Train only has 2 and do you find that serving everyone leaves no space for more than 2 ?
7. On the Empire builder this fall 3 tables were stacked high with supplies and non perishable food.
8. Either there has to be more commissary locations for supplying the diners such as the Coast Starlight at Oakland ? OR:
9. Placing containers of food and supplies in containers in the new baggage cars. These containers could then be removed by a forklift at an intermediate station(s) and taken to the diner to swap out old vs new ?
10. How does Auto Train handle those rare occasions when it is anticipated to arrive at destination after say 2:00 PM ?
?
Blue Streak:
These are all fair questions.
1 - 3. Not necessarily NO cost. I think they should pay something, but everybody's fares would also contribute to the bottom line in order to avoid the inevitable sticker shock of meals that cover ALL dining car costs. Just how the fares would be structured is a matter to be determined by a marketing specialist, which I am not. Sleeping car passengers may think they are eating free, but the cost of their meals is considered to be a part of what they are paying for their ticket now. If it's really free, then the I.G. report is correct. But it isn't. Actually, I don't see it as being any more deceptive or unfair than a loss leader at your neighborhood super market.
4. That sounds like a workable way to do it. There may be other ways.
5. Extra personnel? That is possible.
6. We do three seatings in each direction on the Auto Train, unless the demand for a third seating is not there. We leave Lorton with enough food for the round trip, but we often have to top off some supplies in Sanford where we turn around. There is a smaller commissary in Sanford to take care of this.
7 - 9. Storage has always been a problem. Inefficient packaging is often a major contributing factor, and I believe we could do far better if our suppliers would be more efficient about it. Example: Kelloggs single-serve boxed dry cereal in cases of 70 have been supplied to us in the past. Packaging for Kashi cereal in cases of 36 (same price per unit on our paperwork, by the way) has been calculated to take 219% as much space on a "per serving" basis. I have often wondered how they handle these problems on trains from Chicago to the West Coast, and your Empire Builder example illustrates exactly what I had feared: An unsightly dining car. I like your idea of having intermediate resupply, but I wonder about the availability of a forklift operator, so the idea might have to be tweaked a bit. The Auto Train was the last Amtrak train to allow smoking, in a special designated area of the unique Auto Train lounge cars. Since smoking is now prohibited, it might be possible to use that space for dining car supplies on the Auto Train, but maybe the baggage car is the best option for other trains.
10. "Late" is a four-letter word. If southbound train 53 is late, there is generally enough "northbound" food available for us to prepare a hot lunch for the passengers. Then supplies can be replenished at Sanford, even if it means going to the grocery store to get what we need. Northbound on train 52, it's a bit more of a problem because we don't have much extra food left. The first choice is to check the passenger count, then see what we have left and prepare a lunch with at least two selections. We can usually work out something acceptable. Occasionally, we are forced to use our EMERGENCY supplies, which means canned beef stew over rice. We always have that on hand, but we hate to come down to that level, so we don't if we can avoid it.
My suggestions are general in nature. They would have to be tweaked to suit each individual train's route, clientele, pricing, schedule, etc. In each case there would be problems to solve, but that's what happens in real life: Adults solve problems.
CJtrainguy Weren't those trains primarily created as an alternative to the all Pullman trains on the same route? That was the case with El Capitan and Super Chief.
Weren't those trains primarily created as an alternative to the all Pullman trains on the same route? That was the case with El Capitan and Super Chief.
Santa Fe always had Chair Cars (their terminology) on all passenger trains except for the Super Chief. In Summer, the Super Chief ran separate from the Chief and in later years separate from the El Capitan. In Winter, the El Cap and Super Chief were combined, running as one unit.
An interesting side note is that all Santa Fe passenger trains ran with an extra B diesel. Should one of the locomotives become disabled en route, the extra would enter service to keep the Chicago-LA trains on their 46 hour schedule, similarly for Chicago-Texas service and Chicago-San Francisco service.
On many levels, I always felt the Santa Fe was a cut above most other railroads in their passenger service. I do miss riding those trains.
RJ Emery near Santa Fe, NM
ACY The cost of running a dining car will be high, no matter how it's paid for. You can call it trickery if you like, but anybody who gets on a train and expects the operator to provide a good quality of service in a well-equipped dining car without there being significant costs is naïve. I'm suggesting that a portion of the ticket price can offset some of this cost so that the amount paid in the dining car at the time of service is a bit lower, thus encouraging more business so that the dining car can be fully utilized. The money has to come from somewhere, and this is just another way to apportion the revenue so that the costs are covered. Anybody who is "tricked" into thinking he is getting something for nothing is just willfully ignorant. Tom
The cost of running a dining car will be high, no matter how it's paid for. You can call it trickery if you like, but anybody who gets on a train and expects the operator to provide a good quality of service in a well-equipped dining car without there being significant costs is naïve. I'm suggesting that a portion of the ticket price can offset some of this cost so that the amount paid in the dining car at the time of service is a bit lower, thus encouraging more business so that the dining car can be fully utilized. The money has to come from somewhere, and this is just another way to apportion the revenue so that the costs are covered. Anybody who is "tricked" into thinking he is getting something for nothing is just willfully ignorant.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
I'm kind of tired of having my words reinterpreted & twisted to suit somebody else's agenda. I've suggested one way to set up the service and the payment for it. My solution isn't necessarily the best or only alternative. It's a suggestion to fill the dining car because, as I have said, dining cars need to be filled up in order to justify the innate costs of their operation. I haven't called the passenger ignorant. I have suggested that observers who don't look at the total picture, and who believe freebies fall out of the sky are willfully ignorant.
Having ridden the trains discussed, I think I am correct when I say that the Chief and the Super Chief were always separate trains, with the Chief having a slower schedule with some times at intermedieate points more convenient, but still with supurb service and comfort. It was all Pullman for most of its life, but I think coaches were added after the Scout was discontinued. For all AT&SF transcontinental trains, all diesel units were online, and none were just hauled idle to be put into service in emergencies. But the trains were equipped with reserve power, and I do recall one A-B-B-B-A consist of F units, at least one time and probably more. Yes, the Super Chief and El Capitan were combined in the off-season. But when the El Capitan was run as a separate train and SOLD OUT continually, a few coaches WERE added to the Super to accomodate the overflow! Not very well known, but it did happen. I do not recall a separate diner or lounge for the coach passengers.
When the railroads ran the great passenger trains, such as the Super Chief, El Cap, CZ, etc., they didn't need to force passengers to pay for using the dining car by building the cost into their ticket. Passengers went to the dining car and odered what they wanted if they wanted to. Now the deal is that sleeper car passengers pay their fare and the dining car meals are thrown in, although not for the coach passengers on the same train. Since Amtrak's accounting is less than transparent, we do not know if the sleeper car passengers' fares fully cover the cost of their meals, if the coach passengers help subsidize the sleeper passengers or if the whole deal is subsidized by Acela and the taxpayer. If the dining service cannot come close to covering the expenses and passengers would stay away if they had to really pay the cost, then the primary beneficiaries are the dining car staff. No one is twisting your words, ACY. You simply cannot address these issues.
"[Railroads in the 'good old days'] didn't need to force passengers to pay for using the dining car by building the cost into their ticket." This comment implies that the operating railroads made money, or at least broke even, on dining car receipts. I would challenge anyone to show proof of the truth of that. It was always understood that passenger service, and all the services it entails, was a money loser for the railroads in the days before Amtrak, and that Amtrak was established to free the railroads of the obligation to absorb those losses. If that were not the case, well-run railroads like U.P. and Santa Fe would never have relinquished their flagship trains to Amtrak in the first place.
After looking over a few of the recent postings, I do realize there are places where I could have chosen my words better. However, anybody who has paid the least bit of attention to my comments on these subjects over the past few months knows that I care deeply for my passengers, that I respect them, and that anyone who says anything to the contrary is jumping to conclusions and ignoring the larger context of my comments. I have suggested one possible way to price the product so that we can reach the goal of full utilization of dining cars, and now find that Schlimm chooses to attack me for doing what he says I can't do: Address these issues. I don't claim my suggestion is the best possible one, or the only one. It is an approach that might have some merit, whether it is implemented in the way I described, or with some changes. There are probably a lot of other ideas that should be looked into. Schlimm says "...the primary beneficiaries are the dining car staff." My suggestion would involve a busier dining car, hence a harder work day for the dining car staff, so I don't see how this equates to the obs staff being "beneficiaries." I, for one, am not getting rich.
daveklepper Having ridden the trains discussed, I think I am correct when I say that the Chief and the Super Chief were always separate trains, with the Chief having a slower schedule with some times at intermedieate points more convenient, but still with supurb service and comfort. It was all Pullman for most of its life, but I think coaches were added after the Scout was discontinued. For all AT&SF transcontinental trains, all diesel units were online, and none were just hauled idle to be put into service in emergencies. But the trains were equipped with reserve power, and I do recall one A-B-B-B-A consist of F units, at least one time and probably more. Yes, the Super Chief and El Capitan were combined in the off-season. But when the El Capitan was run as a separate train and SOLD OUT continually, a few coaches WERE added to the Super to accomodate the overflow! Not very well known, but it did happen. I do not recall a separate diner or lounge for the coach passengers.
When El Capitan was created, it was, of course, an entirely separate train, and its schedule was a few minutes different from that of the Super Chief. It, also, began life as a less than daily train, but ran twice as often as the Super Chief, since two sets of equipment were built for it. After the War, both trains received enough new cars so they could run daily..
Johnny
Sorry if you feel the need to obfuscate. I am sure you do your job very well. That is not the issue. My entire point is the need to allow passengers to be able to make an informed choice. The only beneficiaries of having sleeper car passengers forced to pay to dining car services as part of their ticket are the staf, in this obvious way, which you revealed. You said in effect, that freebies (that are not really free) attract more traffic into the dining car. I the passengers only patronized the car in smaller numbers, the number of staff would be reduced. If the numbers of patrons were low enough, perhaps the diner would be replaced with a buffet/cafe car, with even lower staffing needs.
You also claim to know more about the accounting than the IG, which I find to be unlikely.
Schlimm
.....and no food at all would mean no staff at all, which would seem top be a perfect fit for your perfect vision of a perfect long distance passenger train.
I've said I'm not an accountant & don't claim to be one. And I've also said that the I.G.'s report calls things "free" which I know to be accounted for and reported at the o.b.s. end. I have said that the conversations we have always had internally, have always considered these "perks" as items that were ultimately paid for in some way. I did not say I know more about accounting than the I.G., but I have suggested that their notion of "free" does not coincide with my understanding.
I'm done with this. I don't need it.
But ACY, WE NEED YOU. And I sincerely hope that you have some paid consultancy with Amtrak after you retire from onboard service, because you have a lot to contribute. If I ever get into some influence with Israel Railroads, and they decide to upgrade the very spartan commuter-train-like service they now offer, I will recommend they ask you for some advice.
Schlimm, I think your advice makes some sense for corridor trains. It is way off-base for long-distance trains. Can you imagine Carnaval Lines or other tourist-boat operators offering a base service and then charging what would be on-land-astronomical-prices for meals? How much of their customer base would they retain? Did the D&RGW or Southern attempt to do what you want Amtrak to do when they ran their money-loosing but passenger-happy passenger trains? And don't give me the nonsense about Southern and D&RGW were private corporations and thus free to do what they wanted while Amtrak is subsidized by the taxpayer. The freight customers of D&RGW and Southern had even less to say about subsidizing passenger service, and ultimately they are the ones that paid for it, then does the American tax-payer, who seems to tell his elected representatives that the LD trains should continue.
On corridor trips, longest say four hours, a passenger can do without meals, just as on a four-hour flight. But for long distancee, it is unreasonable to expect even the intelligent passenger to understand all the costs associated with providing meals on trains, no matter how they are prepared, stored, and served, so what you call giving them the opportunity to make an intelligent decison results in their making an unintellligent decision:.'"Those People are Gougers, and I'll never ride their train again. They get me on board with a cheap fare and the charge triple a good restaurant price for a meal."
Possibly, instead, all passengers on long distance trains should get meals paid for in the ticket price, but coach passenger should get a more basic but wholesome food, and, yes, meat stew over boiled rice can be economical, tasty, and nuitricious. Coach passengers would have the chance to upgrade to the food prepared for sleeper passengers by paying a differential.
But, ACY, I hope you do get a chance to sample Acela 1st class food, and see if there is a possibilitiy that it might be a cost-reduction solution for long distance trains. Acela started after I moved to Jerusalem, but my experience with Metroliner 1st-class food and with Kosher food indicates it could possibly be a step toward a solution.
My opinion differs here on these points.
1. I don't think OBS personnel have been given a chance with Amtrak's current offerings to do any upselling or service enhancements, which they might do on other trains that are privately run.
2. Amtrak is definitely NOT Carnival Cruise lines. I can't imagine Carnival offering the limited menu that Amtrak offers. Additionally, Amtrak has not really figured out if it's first class passengers are first class or just economy class passengers that wanted to upgrade their seating arrangements. I seem to remember a whole better level of service when the railroads were privately run for sleeping car passengers and Amtrak is currently not even meeting that threshold. I don't blame the on board service personnel for that I blame Amtrak management. Clearly Amtrak management has decided the status quo is OK and in my view given the numbers it is not.
3. In some cases we DO NOT want to return fully to privately run passenger train standards. Lets face it, on some of the high class trains of yesteryear the OBS were sleeping on the dining car tables for lack of on board space......I think that's gross but it happened. Additionally, they had much loser food handling standards back then and much loser standards for the kitchen. Happily we have advanced somewhat from some of the labor shortcuts taken during the privately run passenger train days.
4. I agree on the better Accounting for sleeping car meals and I think now is the time to fix that while sleeping car space is in such demand and in short supply.
Sorry if ACY is so defensive and feels everyone needs to agree with him or he is "out of here." I have not been clear in my points, apparently. I am not saying there should be no food service or it should be as it was in the golden era. I am saying there needs to be transparency in both the accounting and what the customer sees about charges so he or she can have a free choice. What is wrong with that? It is supposed to be the American way for consumers.
If the passengers on a train choose to not pay $15 for a glorified Big Whopper, then that should be their choice, not Amtrak's. If the IG has discovered inconvenient truths over the years about the food operation on Amtrak, that's the way the cookie crumbles. And if the food staff find their salaries are too low and work too hard, I would suggest they try gourmet restaurants in the competitive market.
Some here seem to think the fact that reheated middle range food warrants double or triple the price because it is on a dining car on a train. In fact, the food service does not have to pay for the rent of space in a building. It has a smaller staff, since the food is merely reheated in most cases. And why not compare the Amtrak service with a tranatlantic flight? On that flight, 250-300 passengers are typically served 2 reheated commissary meals plus beverages in an 8-9 hour period. And the passengers don't have to sign up for some two hour seating period, where if you are unlucky, you might wait 4 hours on that Auto-Train. Totally unacceptable. On the transatlantic or Pacific) flight, you get your food pretty quickly and beverage refills quite promptly. All this is done in very cramped space and working around some turbulent air periods. And then you get another meal. How do they manage to do that with a fairly small staff?
[Addendum} Dave, you brought up Carnaval Cruise Lines' service. And that is making a point I have asserted for a long time. LD service should be run as transportation, not as a land cruise, in order to be eligible for being taxpayer subsidized. Back in the day, I recall riding, as did you, El Capitan. 39 hours, all hi-level deluxe coach, with a dining car that served great cooked food, which the patron paid for, depending on what he/she chose to eat or not. Worked then.
Dave & others
Sorry, Dave, I should have wished you a happy Hanukkah yesterday!
Thanks, Dave, but Amtrak probably wouldn't hire me as a consultant because I don't have the all-important sheepskin hanging on the wall. I'm not so sure I'd want the job anyway. There have been times I've felt like I was beating my head against a wall at work, and I'd be afraid of doing it some more as a consultant --- much like this conversation.
I do plan to do some traveling after I retire, and maybe then I'll get a better idea how it's done on other trains, other regions, other types of service. The ironic thing about being an Amtrak employee and having a pass is that you rarely get to use it while you're employed because if you travel too far from home, you'll often have to fly home in order to make your next trip. I used to enjoy flying, but changed my mind about that long before 9-11. Once you retire, the transportation is free (subject to availability of space), but your income is reduced so that the other costs of travel (hotels, restaurant meals, car rentals, etc.) can become problematic if you spend too much time on the road. So we'll just have to see.
As far as this discussion is concerned, this is something I do on my days off. I think I've probably contributed about as much as I can contribute, and see little point in spending my precious free time playing semantic games. There are others who appear to know SO MUCH MORE than I do.
But I'm not dead yet. You'll hear from me in the future. Just not now. I have to go to work again tomorrow.
Returning to the original topic, I am wondering what the financial performance of El Capitan was when run as a separate train. We know passenger service lost money overall when it was private, at least for the final 10 years or so, on all railroads and across all trains they ran in total. Many trains were big losers once the mail service was yanked. But perhaps some individual trains (such as El Cap and maybe Super Chief, but not the Chief or SF Chief), actually came close to break even or even made a small profit. If so, how to identify those?
In its prime, El Capitan (surcharge) ran with 5 72-passenger Hi-Level chair cars, 2 68-passenger 'step-down' (but still Hi-level) chair cars, a Hi-Level lounge seating 84 passengers and a Hi-Level dining car (large kitchen on lower level) also seating 80 passengers, plus 1-2 baggage cars and a dormitory car. So the capacity could have been 496 passengers in the chair cars for the 39 to 40:30 hour, two night out run. When combined with the Super Chief, they ran as totally separate trains pulled by the same group of engines. An article in Streamliner Schedules http://www.streamlinerschedules.com/concourse/track8/elcapitan195607.html describes it as Sante Fe's most consistent money maker once it was equipped with Hi-Level cars. It was often sold-out and a second section could have been run but for the lack of Hi-Level cars. So it can be seen that a deluxe coach train could be run today on the longest of the LD runs and be heavily patronized. Why not try again? it worked before.
schlimmIf the passengers on a train choose to not pay $15 for a glorified Big Whopper, then that should be their choice, not Amtrak's.
Thats what Rep Mica (R-FL) says it costs to actually make not what they charge for it.
The "Angus Steak Burger" is actually only $5.75 by itself in the Cafe Car (renamed the "Flame Broiled Cheeseburger"), what happens is they offer the same Burger in the Dining Car and add Potato Chips and a pickle and suddenly it costs $10.50. Now you have to ask yourself how these things are being priced because in my view it actually costs more to serve it in the Cafe Car. In portion size and taste, I have had both and it is essentially the same burger. The difference is in the Dining Car you can customize the toppings on it, you can't in the Cafe Car. Why the chips and pickle are determined to cost $4.75 more is beyond me. Again, Amtraks pricing and if I had to guess the pricing is set at the Commissary for these items.
You can download the menus from the Amtrak website for both the Cafe Car and the Dining Car.
Something that needs clarification. The legacy RRs were unable to +build in to their fares the price of meals as they were all regulated by the ICC or state regulators. Can someone tell if the extra fare RRs had the extra fares approved as well ? The inability of RRs to raise fares for meals is an interesting metric ?
l
No railroad, except the New Haven, in the days of generally good private railroad pasenger service, came close to breaking even on dining car service. The New Haven showed a small profit, only because it included the greatly patornized bar cars on evening commuter trains that sold drinks at a considerable profit with minimum labor and other operating costs. They also did run possibly sharpest dining and grill car operation. So, again with the exception of the New Haven, the freight customers did subsidize the meals for all passengers, coach and Pullman, who patronized the dining cars, and thus the meals were priced reasonably, yes above that in a typical good restaurante, but not so high as to result in complaints about gouging.
Having possibly made about 500 long distance train trips in my life, about 150 on Amtrak, i would claim that a long distance train today bears a far greater resemblence to a Carnival cruise ship, then it does to a corridor train. Check the missions. The primiary mission of corridor trains today is really to reduce highway and airport congestion and allow citiies to function. The missions of long distance trains are to promote tourism, to proivde access to country for elderly and handicapped, to reach isolated locations without other public transportation (but those in a hurry can use a taxi except in some winter conditions) and possibly to provide emergency and backup transportation. In the corridors, those in a hurry should and do take the train. Long distance, those in a hurry will fly. Now Schlimm and Sam1 may say the taxpayers should only subsidize transportation, not tourism, and that the elderly and handicapped are not enough of a population to be worth serving, but I think they are wrong. And that is why I support continued long distance service and recommend that meals be part of the ticket price for all passengers, not just sleeping car passengers.
It costs a lot less to serve that hamberger in the lounge car than it does in the dining car. One lounge car attendent as compared with two waiters, one chef, and one steward. And would not the attendent be required even if food and drinks were not served?
Revive the El Cap? Just how would removing the sleepers from the Southwest Chief increase coach travel on it to compensate for the loss of sleeper passengers? The El Cap and rival all coach trains on the UP ran as separate trains year-round when there were no jets and when transcontinental regular airline fares, lowest price, were equal to Pulllman's.
schlimm Returning to the original topic, I am wondering what the financial performance of El Capitan was when run as a separate train. We know passenger service lost money overall when it was private, at least for the final 10 years or so, on all railroads and across all trains they ran in total. Many trains were big losers once the mail service was yanked. But perhaps some individual trains (such as El Cap and maybe Super Chief, but not the Chief or SF Chief), actually came close to break even or even made a small profit. If so, how to identify those?
Schlimm,
I have yet to figure out what your hypothesis is and why you think it makes sense.
Are you suggesting that the per head loss on first class passengers is higher than coach?
Are you suggesting that since dining cars consistently loose money they should be removed from the consist?
Are you suggesting that sleepers be scrapped and replaced with coach cars?
Mac
1. Since the primary cost for Amtrak is labor, it makes sense to reduce labor costs to reduce losses. Sleepers are more labor-intensive than coaches, obviously. Even with higher fares, the net loss from sleepers (revenue minus costs) is likely higher than from coaches.
2. Running LD passenger sleeper cars as land cruises, for whoever the patrons are, by being subsidized by Acela service and taxpayers makes no sense.
3. Dining cars may well lose money, but running them as a shell game by hiding the price of food is not very forthright. Charge patrons for what they choose to eat, with a sufficient charge to come close to breaking even.
But sleepers arre often more sold-out than coaches, and you do not have the figures that can prlove that sleepers lose more money than coaches on a per-passenger-mile basis. Possibly the fares are too low. But that may be true of coaches as well as sleepers. I answerfed your second argument by pointing out just what the missions of LD trains are. Again, you do not believe in subsidizing American tourism, both internal and overseas visitors, and I do. You do not believe in susbidizing handicapped and elderly country-wide access and I do. You do not believe that the farmer in Kansas or Oklahoma or any place far from any corridor has a right to his small almost inconsequential share of the Amtrak subsidy, and I do.
You think Amtrak's LD finncial problems can be helped by throwing away existing business. I know this will make the remaining business require an even greater subsidy, not a smaller one.
I agree that dining-car losses should be reduced and agree with Fred Frailey on the approach. Whether ticket sales should subsidize meals to hide costs is an overall marketing stratergy, Whether this should only apply to sleeper patrons, all patrons, or whatever, should be a decision left to those that best understand the whole passenger business and not strict economic fundamentalism which is a term describing calling the current practice "a shell game" is.
In other words, really your latest posting is answered by the one I posted just before. We can agree to disagree on these fundamentals and still together look for ways of reducing costs in providing food service --- and Amtrak service in general, without losing quality. But throwing away business is not one that makes sense to me.
It would be interesting to know how the Chicago - New Orleans Pullman service is doing. Possibly that might be the future for sleeping car service. Another might be a new Slumbercoach type of service with cars designed and rebuilt and bult appropriately.
Reading everything written about the possibility of all coach trains, if you remember the history of the early all coach overnight streamlined trains such as the Humming Bird, Georgian, Silver Meteor, Champions, Dixie Flagler, City of Miami, and South Wind were far more successful after sleeping cars were added. A postwar overnight coach streamlined train the Starlight of the SP was also later combined with the all Pullman Lark between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The only ones I remember being successful throughout there pre Amtrak days were the El Capitans and City of New Orleans.
Both the NYC and PRR all coach overnight trains were combined with all Pullman trains or sleeping cars were added.
North of the Border in Canada they operated no overnight all coach streamlined trains that I have been able to find anyway. And the same seems to be true for south of the border in Mexico.
Al - in - Stockton
I am no fan of ATK. If I had the power I would shut it down except for NEC, and perhaps to & from Harrisburg. That said however;
As to #1 and #2 you seem to have no knowledge about the per head loss in sleepers vs. coach. Neither do I. The issue is not labor cost but loss per head. If fares are high enough to pay for higher labor costs and offset higher capital cost and lower capacity per car, then keeping the sleepers is the correct economic desision.
You seem have implied in this thread that adding more coach cars to LD trains is a good idea. Since coach occupancy is in the 60% or so range, the most likely result of such a strategy is higher losses as marginal costs increase far faster than marginal revenue. You might argue that by cutting two sleepers and adding a coach, the sleeper passengers will be forced to coach where you believe losses are less. Since people are still free to choose how to spend their travel money, and since coach is a far less pleasant experience than first class, I believe that very few of the sleeper passengers would continue to ride the train. They would just go away.
Dining cars loose money. Period. Food service is absolutely required on LD trains since most passengers are on the train for longer than they want to go without food or bring it from home.
I see no problem with bundling food and transportation for first class since what meals will be provided can be reliably determined. The question then becomes one of internal allocation, that is, does ATK credit the diner with the menu price of the food provided. This is not complex, and I presume that ATK does it simply to minimize the reported loss on dining cars, which seems to be a favorite political target.
The reason that ATK runs LD trains is to buy the votes of "rural" politicians to support funding for the NEC. No one knows what would happen if congress discontinues the LD trains. I would be happy to find out.
Al (passenger fan), I appreciate your comments. However, I do not believe that the City of New Orleans enters into this, since as long as the IC operated it, it was a day coach train all the way, though it arrived at its destination close to midnight. It was The Train for a certain class of passengers who traveled between the deep South and Chicago. When I rode it in the early sixties, I ate lunch once and dinner twice, and found the food comparable to what I had eaten on other trains, such as those of the other southern roads.
Only after Amtrak had been in operation for a few years, and renamed the Panama Limited, did it become an overnight train with sleepers. I rode it in the spring of 1982, when its not-as-splendid meal service was much, much superior to that on such as the California Zephyr and Lake Shore Limited.
daveklepperBut sleepers arre often more sold-out than coaches, and you do not have the figures that can prlove that sleepers lose more money than coaches on a per-passenger-mile basis.
When was the last time you squeezed 86 passengers into a sleeper? They should be more expensive than they currently are because:
1. Much Lower capacity than coach.
2. Higher cost to turn around than coach.
3. Demand is there on some trains for additional sleeping cars but lack of equipment holds Amtrak back.......solution should be higher prices to ration demand. However, even with Amtraks yield management system they still sell out sleeper space on some trains months in advance.....which leads one to conclude they are not charging enough for the space.
4. Last but not least Amtrak cannot maintain the existing sleeping car fleet to standards that represent a first class service. My last ride on the Capital limited my sleeping car compartment had several large stains that could have been taken care of with a decent steam cleaning of the car. Instead of spending that money Amtrak choose to send the car out again.......which is sad, IMO.
I agree that LD trains should have the sleeper option but I don't see anything wrong with trying all coach long distance trains with better LD Coach accomodations as competition to the more expensive sleeping car service. It's not a new idea either, look at Milwaukee Roads former Tourelux Cars, half sleeper, half coach but cheaper than full sleeper. Good idea the Milwaukee Road came up with there and they seemed to sell just fine. One problem I see Amtrak having is it believes there are only two classes of passengers FIRST and COACH. Even the airlines are not that stupid on their overnight flights and offer a BUSINESS CLASS. Amtrak should explore this third market, IMO.
daveklepper No railroad, except the New Haven, in the days of generally good private railroad pasenger service, came close to breaking even on dining car service ... the freight customers did subsidize the meals for all passengers, coach and Pullman, who patronized the dining cars ...
No railroad, except the New Haven, in the days of generally good private railroad pasenger service, came close to breaking even on dining car service ... the freight customers did subsidize the meals for all passengers, coach and Pullman, who patronized the dining cars ...
I've gotta nickpick this one, Dave, although otherwise I'm all with you and ACY on the indispensability of full-service dining cars on LD passenger trains.
The I.C.C. and truck competition set the rail freight rates. Any subsidy to the dining-car operation -- like that to a road's passenger service, period -- was out of the hide of STOCKHOLDERS. Which is just one reason railroad stocks were such a poor buy until deregulation -- or, rather, the rails' seizing the opportunities offered by deregulation -- began to take hold in the 1990s.
Otherwise: I find laughable the opposition to LD that is based on professed solicitude for taxpayer dollars. Usually, the regular Amtrak critics on here are all-in for the social spending that really eats our lunch. One green-eyeshade regular admits to having not just voted for our current president but to having campaigned for him!
My bottom line:
** Every day of the year -- before lunch -- Washington spills more money than is spent on Amtrak annually.
** For the modest money, Amtrak returns a real service and product that is available to everybody.
** A LD passenger train without sleepers and a traditional diner is not a LD passenger train at all.
Within these perimeters, EFFICIENCY UP all you like. But don't pretend Amtrak's modest expense is a budget buster or an excuse to get rid of the LD passenger train. That is just too grotesque -- particularly from alleged rail fans, and on this forum.
Schlim, I agree with you that intermediate service between coach and 1sst class would be a good bet, and has its precidence in the Slumbercoach/sleepercoach service the B&O, NYC, CB&Q, NP offered. Butg sepafage trains for separate classes simply runs up uneccessary expense and causes track occupancy problems for the host railroads in addition. Better run them as a combined train to drastically reduce operation costs as compared with separate trains. When sleepercoach service was offered on the four railroads named above, I always took advantage of it when it was available.
As far as elminating sleeper service to save money, here is why it doesn't work: Granted there is probably no long distance Amtrak train that has a profitable sleeping-car business if we expect the sleeper ticket sales to produce bottom-line revenue that exceeds the proportionat share (whether based on per person, per person-mile, or per ticket price, all of which give dirrent results) of total costs. The next step is the question whether the sleepers loose more money than the coaches, based on any or alll of the three formulas. I think an annalysis would show that they do on some LD trains and don't on others. But the only way elimination of sleepers would reduce subsidies is if the AVOIDABLE COSTS exceeded the extra revenue the sleeper passengers produce. In other words, for a given LD train, assome 15% of the sleeper passengers would continue to use the train in coach. But I am certain that for those Amtrak trains with sleeper service, loss of 85% the sleeper passengers would not be offset by the economies of dropping the diner and its attendant and the sleeping car attendants and the maintenance and extra fuel costs involved with the cars themselves, becuase the remaing coach passengers would have to cover the total costs of the train operation.
There probably was one train that met that criterion, and meets your discription today. It is the Boston - Newport News train, which has not had a sleeper ever since the use of heritage sleepers converted to head-end power was ended. Possbly this is due to the fact the Amtrak's analysts did decide that in this case avoidable costs exceeded the additional revenue the sleeper each way would produce. There is clearly a market for thiis sleeping car's service, but Amtrak has to look at the costs involved in providing the service and so-far has decided not to provide it. If one wishes to travel by train overnight, it is convenitend for Boston and Providence to Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, Petersburg, Colonial Williamsburg, and Newport New - Norfolk.
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