Amtrak is a quasi-government, subsidized passenger operation chartered to provide transportation. Land cruises are not basic transportation. They should be private operations. If they mostly have failed, it is because not enough people are willing to pay the cost plus profit.
LD trains already are cruises to me. I really hate to fly, and my wife refuses to, but if I had to get somewhere fast, I could. But to me, my vacation starts when I step on the train, not when I get to the other end. I can sit in a comfortable seat, I can walk around, I can visit the club car for a drink or snack. Try doing those on a plane. And no middle seats. I can watch beautiful scenery out my window. don't market it as getting from A to B. Market it as a leisure form of travel.
The long-distance luxury cruise/vacation train seems to work in Australia, what do the operators of the modern Indian Pacific and Ghan have that the American Orient Express did not?
Rocky Mountaineer has been by far the most successful and profitable private operator on this continent, but they don't run sleeping cars and the mountain scenery is their big draw.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
ontheBNSFEliminate long distance trains or make them into land cruises.
A dozen private rail cruise operations have tried this since Amtrak, and all have gone out of business.
ontheBNSFYou can eliminate meal cars or turn them into automats
SP tried this, and it was a failure.
ontheBNSFImprove the weight to passenger ratio of vehicles - Modern passenger trains, not just American ones, are using a lot weight and material to move people. A PCC Car or bus can move large numbers of people while using less weight than modern passenger trains.
GM created the Aerotrain using bus architecture, and it was so rough that it was unrideable.
ontheBNSF Realistically Amtrak is here to stay whether we like it or not. So we should try to make it better at what it is designed to, which is moving people from point a to point b. Eliminate long distance trains or make them into land cruises. - Realistically with airplanes trains over very long distances don't make sense as a practical form of transportation. These routes should be either eliminated or they should be made into land cruises and tours for railfans. These trains should be operated like the Napa Valley Wine train, Alaska Railroads Passenger service, or the rockey mountaineer. Meal Cars on Shorter Distance trains - You can eliminate meal cars or turn them into automats. Much of the meal cars on Amtrak trains are fancy convienience stores with microwaves and a guy standing there. These increase labor costs and don't offer much for the customer experience. You can also have food delivered to trains at stations and for many shorter distance routes you could simply have people buy and eat at stations. Labor efficiency - From anecdotal experience Amtrak trains are atrocious whe n it comes to labor efficiency. An Amtrak train will have a meal car, an engineer who drives the train and often two, three or even more conductors. The conductor spends most of his time going up and down the train, opening doors and inspecting tickets. This job is basically unncessary with modern technology. Crew sizes should be no larger than 2 people, 1 engineer for driving the train and a 2nd passenger routes could be done with 1 person crews without problems. Many of conductor safety purposes, such as flagging crossings. Realistically many passenger routes could be done with 1 person crews without problems. Many of these conductors could be retrain to be engineers to enable more frequent service. Having fare/ticket gates would much more economical, though would require some upfront cost. You could also probably replace the ticket offices with e-ticketing and ticket machines. This article explains the importance of labor efficiency. https://pedestrianobservations.com/2015/07/26/why-labor-efficiency-is-important/ Improve the weight to passenger ratio of vehicles - Modern passenger trains, not just American ones, are using a lot weight and material to move people. A PCC Car or bus can move large numbers of people while using less weight than modern passenger trains. PCC and buses cars will use anywhere in the ballpark of 400 - 1000 pounds to move a human who is anywhere from 100 - 300 pounds, where as modern passenger trains will take anywhere from 1500 pounds to 3000 pounds to do the same job. This problem is made worse by trains with low load factors, many trains will often only be 25% or 50% full. The goal should not only be lighter weight trains but higher load factors and sweating equipment. Ouigo in France, and intercity buses and airplanes have how to make city to city travel more cost effective, implement some of these practices on passenger trains in the US. US regulations make this problem particularly egregious. https://bikeeastbay.org/rail/fra.html
Realistically Amtrak is here to stay whether we like it or not. So we should try to make it better at what it is designed to, which is moving people from point a to point b.
Eliminate long distance trains or make them into land cruises. - Realistically with airplanes trains over very long distances don't make sense as a practical form of transportation. These routes should be either eliminated or they should be made into land cruises and tours for railfans. These trains should be operated like the Napa Valley Wine train, Alaska Railroads Passenger service, or the rockey mountaineer.
Meal Cars on Shorter Distance trains - You can eliminate meal cars or turn them into automats. Much of the meal cars on Amtrak trains are fancy convienience stores with microwaves and a guy standing there. These increase labor costs and don't offer much for the customer experience. You can also have food delivered to trains at stations and for many shorter distance routes you could simply have people buy and eat at stations.
Labor efficiency - From anecdotal experience Amtrak trains are atrocious whe n it comes to labor efficiency. An Amtrak train will have a meal car, an engineer who drives the train and often two, three or even more conductors. The conductor spends most of his time going up and down the train, opening doors and inspecting tickets. This job is basically unncessary with modern technology. Crew sizes should be no larger than 2 people, 1 engineer for driving the train and a 2nd passenger routes could be done with 1 person crews without problems. Many of conductor safety purposes, such as flagging crossings. Realistically many passenger routes could be done with 1 person crews without problems. Many of these conductors could be retrain to be engineers to enable more frequent service. Having fare/ticket gates would much more economical, though would require some upfront cost. You could also probably replace the ticket offices with e-ticketing and ticket machines.
This article explains the importance of labor efficiency.
https://pedestrianobservations.com/2015/07/26/why-labor-efficiency-is-important/
Improve the weight to passenger ratio of vehicles - Modern passenger trains, not just American ones, are using a lot weight and material to move people. A PCC Car or bus can move large numbers of people while using less weight than modern passenger trains. PCC and buses cars will use anywhere in the ballpark of 400 - 1000 pounds to move a human who is anywhere from 100 - 300 pounds, where as modern passenger trains will take anywhere from 1500 pounds to 3000 pounds to do the same job. This problem is made worse by trains with low load factors, many trains will often only be 25% or 50% full. The goal should not only be lighter weight trains but higher load factors and sweating equipment. Ouigo in France, and intercity buses and airplanes have how to make city to city travel more cost effective, implement some of these practices on passenger trains in the US.
US regulations make this problem particularly egregious.
https://bikeeastbay.org/rail/fra.html
Amtrak has to redo the single use speciality cars that were invented well over 100 years ago. Seems to me Amtrak realizes this and is experimenting with the concept. Sightseer lounge by itself was great back in the day when streamliners were competing against each other for traffic but in this day and age I think they need to replace it with a muli-purpose or multi-role car. I think you can take the Superliner Diner, shrink the kitchen on the bottom as it no longer needs to be that size if your not cooking from scratch. Put the employee lounge on the first floor with the kitchen or prep area. Second floor you need to do what Friends of 261 does with their Super Dome. Use the second floor as a combo buffet diner and sightseer lounge. Have at least one of the attendents be a trained mixologist and serve mixed drinks. Have the same car serve snacks in between meals. It should really never close to passengers. Eliminate the dedicated baggage cars in favor of combination Coach / Baggage cars as was done in the past. I have my doubts Amtrak ever uses the full 85 foot length of the current baggage cars it uses and you could probably easy shrink it by half or 2/3 and use the remainder for coach or premium coach to make up for the space the baggage compartment uses. So now your down two cars in every Amtrak consist that I think are highly inefficient in use. The sleeping cars I think they need to import the design from Europe with the smaller economy sleeping space and the larger deluxe sleeper sleeping space. They likewise I think can build a few combo coach / sleeper cars where just half the car is sleeper and the other half coach for use on trains where they need a little extra capacity of both but not a whole new car.
I want to clarify something here because a lot of railfans presume incorrectly about the Alaska Railroad Passenger service. It would run regardless of the tourists or cruise ships and it did so prior to the cruise ships being popular with Alaska. So my point is the Alaska Railroad provides YEAR ROUND passenger service to residents in the State of Alaska that live near the tracks but not accessible by roads. So you cannot classify all their passenger trains as purely a "cruise" train service. They run regular passenger trains to carry regular passengers and goods some on a flagstop basis and they do so year round. If I am not mistaken I believe the state DOT subsidizes that year round service.
Nice post! Some of us have made similar suggestions. But having people get food at station stops en route is 19th century Fred Harvey, a non-starter today.
Labor efficiency - From anecdotal experience Amtrak trains are atrocious when it comes to labor efficiency. An Amtrak train will have a meal car, an engineer who drives the train and often two, three or even more conductors. The conductor spends most of his time going up and down the train, opening doors and inspecting tickets. This job is basically unncessary with modern technology. Crew sizes should be no larger than 2 people, 1 engineer for driving the train and a 2nd conductor safety purposes, such as flagging crossings. Realistically many passenger routes could be done with 1 person crews without problems. Many of these conductors could be retrain to be engineers to enable more frequent service. Having fare/ticket gates would much more economical, though would require some upfront cost. You could also probably replace the ticket offices with e-ticketing and ticket machines.
Railroad to Freedom
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