by Jersey_Mike
After taking a ride this weekend on the Saratoga and North Creek's Ski Train I got into a discussion with one of the managers who told me about plans Iowa Pacific Holdings (the parent company that runs a number of excursion services in North America and the UK) has for bringing back "high quality" rail travel experiences to the domestic market. Now I am not about to bemoan the current state of Amtrak sleeping and dining services, but the person I was talking with felt that they could do a lot better and were currently in negotiations with Amtrak to attach private cars on the back of the Lake Shore Limited and City of New Orleans on a regular basis. Now this might remind many of you of the short lived Grand Lux service that Amtrak tried a couple years ago, but the response to that was that this service would not try for corporate jet levels of luxury, simply what the Pullman corporation offered back before A-Day (the name for this new service would have Pullman in it as well). Moreover this service would be price competitive with current Amtrak rates.
It gets more interesting because she said that that wasn't their preferred end state attaching cars to the back of Amtrak trains, but they would actually want to run their own trains, American Orient Express style only without the mismanagement. The whole idea was predicated on the fact that Amtrak "doesn't want" to run sleeper and dining cars and Iowa Pacific could be in a place to take over those services, again in the Pullman model, if Amtrak chose or was forced to abandon them. Now this might sound like some pipe dream, but Iowa Pacific has been very successful in managing its properties and their passenger operations. They have a national reservations call center and after opening this summer the S&NC has just been minting money with a variety of seasonal train services including scheduled connections with Amtrak at Saratoga Springs so these people have some definite follow-through and can back up their words with deeds.
Now I personally welcome the addition of additional sleeper service to trains like the Lake Shore, especially as the Amtrak sleepers continue to run at capacity and that rear mounted baggage car blocks the standard railfan window. Can it offer competitive pricing with Amtrak? Even without using AGR points Amtrak sleepers are often a steal with the food included and one room holding two people. The S&NC ski train however also had very affordable prices, a 120 mile round trip costing on the order of 20-30 bucks for the first class dome car (two adult beverages included) and the food was perhaps a half notch above Amtrak dining car fare in quality and costing a few bucks less.
I honestly don't see Amtrak trying to ditch its first class and dining services because they really bring a lot to the travel experience and the free LD sleeper trips are a plum reward for the AGR folks. Could Amtrak eventually contract out its dining car operations to someone like Iowa Pacific? Maybe, but could Iowa Pacific's model hold up under the weight of a train full of hungry passengers, 3 meals a day. Also using part time, non-union service staff based in low cost of living rural areas might not translate well to crew bases in major cities. Anyway, it was a fascinating conversation that I felt obligated to report here for comment.
It gets more interesting because she said that that wasn't their preferred end state attaching cars to the back of Amtrak trains, but they would actually want to run their own trains, American Orient Express style only without the mismanagement. The whole idea was predicated on the fact that Amtrak "doesn't want" to run sleeper and dining cars and Iowa Pacific could be in a place to take over those services, again in the Pullman model, if Amtrak chose or was forced to abandon them. Now this might sound like some pipe dream, but Iowa Pacific has been very successful in managing its properties and their passenger operations. They have a national reservations call center and after opening this summer the S&NC has just been minting money with a variety of seasonal train services including scheduled connections with Amtrak at Saratoga Springs so these people have some definite follow-through and can back up their words with deeds.
Now I personally welcome the addition of additional sleeper service to trains like the Lake Shore, especially as the Amtrak sleepers continue to run at capacity and that rear mounted baggage car blocks the standard railfan window. Can it offer competitive pricing with Amtrak? Even without using AGR points Amtrak sleepers are often a steal with the food included and one room holding two people. The S&NC ski train however also had very affordable prices, a 120 mile round trip costing on the order of 20-30 bucks for the first class dome car (two adult beverages included) and the food was perhaps a half notch above Amtrak dining car fare in quality and costing a few bucks less.
I honestly don't see Amtrak trying to ditch its first class and dining services because they really bring a lot to the travel experience and the free LD sleeper trips are a plum reward for the AGR folks. Could Amtrak eventually contract out its dining car operations to someone like Iowa Pacific? Maybe, but could Iowa Pacific's model hold up under the weight of a train full of hungry passengers, 3 meals a day. Also using part time, non-union service staff based in low cost of living rural areas might not translate well to crew bases in major cities. Anyway, it was a fascinating conversation that I felt obligated to report here for comment.
