by lordsigma12345
eolesen wrote: ↑Wed Nov 23, 2022 10:04 am It's timing vs value. People will tolerate cattle coach for a 3-5 hour flight over 1500 miles. They won't sit in coach for a 48 hour train ride for the same price and distance. They will for a 4-6 hour ride, though. And it's questionable if they'll pay 3x for the sleeper that takes 8-15x longer in transit... most won't.The pricing is one thing if it starts resulting in more empty rooms and loss of revenue. But so far that doesn't seem to be occurring. Now I suspect your view is that most or all of the network that isn't fare box neutral or postitive should be eliminated or turned over to state funding if there are states that want to but assuming for one minute that's not going to happen - the million dollar question is - assuming they're going to run the trains should they be pricing lower to try to attract more ridership or trying to maximize revenue as much as possible if they're selling the rooms anyway? It may be true that most won't pay the current prices - but some still will and are. So again, the question is - should they be doing what they're doing or should they lower prices? Until someone tells Amtrak to stop or the price gets to the point where they can no longer get enough that "some" I suspect they're going to continue to experiment with sleeper prices to see what the market will bear. Some of the trains are down capacity but even those that aren't like the Auto Train are still pricing quite a bit more. They also seem to be pricing more aggressively at the higher peak times.