jp1822 wrote:Tadman wrote:I think we once discussed this. The basics were that the railroad doesn't want to sell a NYP-PHL-WAS ticket at the expense of a ticket going all the way to Chicago or Florida.
One idea we came up with was to open up these shorthaul seats only 12-24 hours before departure. Another idea would be to leave them open for sale but price them much higher, so the revenue of a sleeper compartment NYP-WAS is the same as NYP-CIN or NYP-ATL.
Of course, your current workaround is to buy a sleeper compartment to one stop south of WAS.
I recall this as well. Amtrak *could* sell northbound (last minute) tickets between Richmond/Washington DC and intermediate points to NYP. This would actually be quite convenient on Sundays from Washington DC.
I'll see JP's opinion and raise it one. All of the reasons are valid...to a certain extent. The unreliability of the long distance trains is a main factor for both directions. Another reason they shied away from selling seats is the condition corridor passengers left the southbound trains in and the condition the northbound trains are often in when they hit the corridor.
My personal thought is this can all go away. We have the precedent and I was around for it. Take a look at the note for
Train 51 on the NEC. I'd like to see a return to those days. 51 took a lot of pressure off 141.
Same for northbound departures.
Train 50 (when it bothered to show up) was great at taking pressure off the NEC trains. During those times, the 7:20 originated in NPN on SUN, but eventually became a Fri/Sun train. When 50 was in the picture, it worked out well since trains weren't reserved at this time. I remember there were numerous occasions they put passengers on 40 between PHL-NYP if things were in bad shape. Typically, the Crescent and Silvers were extremely long, had complicated loading plans (they all split at one point) carried a lot of mail and had longer running times over the NEC, so they weren't used for local travel.
This is no longer the case. The Crescent and the Silvers don't have many operational considerations these days and they are 110mph trains. A few enroute cleaners and a note(similiar to the Cardinal's) could help out ....providing you can count on the reliability. Even if you can't, it barely matters. If you make the tickets available for same day reservation, the inbound is already tracked. You have an idea about how it is running.
The outbound is a little more problematic, but it is worth rolling the dice in my opinion.
Unless there is some sort of accounting or cost issue, I have always felt carrying local passengers over the corridor is worth the effort.