Railroad Forums 

  • The big ax just fell. Long distance to 3x/week.

  • Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.
Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.

Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, mtuandrew, Tadman

 #1545625  by prokowave
 
Absolutely outrageous. This is clearly an attempt to either extort more money from congress or kill off the long distances without justification. You cannot cut your way to profitability - every reduction in cost is going to equal an even larger loss as connectivity is eliminated and passengers aren't able to make less than daily service fit their schedules. Even for the feds, it's more cost effective to write a check to Amtrak than deal with the economic consequences of putting thousands more on unemployment, especially since Amtrak was so close to profitability.
 #1545629  by Gilbert B Norman
 
For those here who hold "it's under control" or even "it's all over", best start thinking of the present "stabilized" condition, where younger people feel compelled to again "gather", as the Intermezzo from "Cavalleria Rusticana".

It's not going away, and will say "I'm back" as the "dry leaves and wild hurricanes fly". Amtrak is simply presenting a business plan reflecting this expected condition.
 #1545630  by SouthernRailway
 
prokowave wrote: Tue Jun 16, 2020 10:26 am Absolutely outrageous. This is clearly an attempt to either extort more money from congress
Well, good. With legitimately worthwhile programs demanding money to avoid service reductions, maybe Congress would stop throwing away money on everything else and finally spend on something that's actually socially useful.

If this is Amtrak saying, "fund us or this is what the network will be", and if Amtrak really doesn't have enough money to run LD trains daily, then why wouldn't Amtrak be forceful in what it does to get more funding?
 #1545631  by Gilbert B Norman
 
Messrs. Prokowave and SRY, Amtrak is already begging for more $$$ just to pay the help and gas up the trains. This is no time to beg for more to prop up the "biggest loser" that has no potential whatever to be anything else.

Now if this is an underhanded ploy to "kill 'em off", I say fine; as it was to have happened some forty five years ago.
 #1545638  by SouthernRailway
 
I'm not seeing any benefit from killing off LD trains. If the NEC were reduced to one train a day in each direction over its entire length, would there be justification for eliminating that train? No. Same for LD trains.

I will be affected by a reduction in Crescent service, but if ridership doesn't support a daily train, and if this is what's needed for Amtrak to cut costs to survive, I can deal with it...I guess.
 #1545641  by Matt Johnson
 
For what it's worth (maybe not a lot), going from daily to triweekly would make travel by train go from being a viable option to something I'd likely pass on. Sure, I might still go out of my way to take a California Zephyr trip as an experiential journey, to use the en vogue term, not unlike a trip on the Canadian. But trips like the one I took to Dallas for my cousin's wedding are much less likely. I took the Capitol Limited and Texas Eagle partly because it was convenient - I didn't have to stop and think about which days the trains were running or if a connection was even viable.
 #1545642  by exvalley
 
I have an overnight trip on the City of New Orleans in October that has been coordinated with airline tickets.

If Amtrak eliminates the train on the day that I am scheduled to travel it is going to really mess things up. I will either have to pay some expensive change fees or spend extra nights in Chicago at the expense of my time in New Orleans. Since the trip was really meant to see New Orleans, it will be very disappointing to be stuck in Chicago.

I also have a one-way trip scheduled on the Lake Shore Limited for a business meeting in Chicago (flying back). That's less of a problem since Amtrak can issue a refund and I can just purchase a plane ticket with the money that was refunded.

History does not look kindly on train service that goes from daily to three times per week. Just look at The Ocean and The Canadian.
 #1545650  by Tadman
 
Matt Johnson wrote: Tue Jun 16, 2020 1:18 pm For what it's worth (maybe not a lot), going from daily to triweekly would make travel by train go from being a viable option to something I'd likely pass on.
This is a good point. What is the threshold that makes Amtrak viable? I know when trying to schedule a trip between LA and Tucson to see family, it aggravates the heck out of me because the train runs only every other day. In other words, in order to pretend run a 1920 business model, we sacrifice any practicality on the route between the 2nd, 10th, and 53rd largest metro areas to cover the emptiest parts of the country. I have skipped the train ten times in the last five years because I can't sit in one city and twiddle my thumbs for a day or two when I only have a day or two free.

So in the context of my own world, it's frustrating to see all trains go this way. I love the Cof NO, it's a perfect bite-sized trip. On the other hand, the long distance trains are very hard to ride for anybody with a fixed schedule. I'm not talking about the time to travel, but the punctuality issues and service issues. It's very hard to show up three hours late in a city, or eight. If I miss a meeting, I have some explaining to do. If I explain that I took a 16 hour train ride that magnified into a 22 hour train ride, that looks really bad to my customers and colleagues. It looks like I don't care about their time.

In closing, I hope we can make this inevitable crunch a productive dialogue about what trains matter and how we can triple ridership/passenger miles by modifying the network.
 #1545653  by mtuandrew
 
First, this is pretty terrible but also expected.

Second, this sounds like something of an opportunity. Perhaps Amtrak would consider keeping the opposite-day schedule for part of their routes - for instance CHI-MSP and DAL-SAN - and also running a half-distance Capitol Limited WAS-CLE interchanging at CLE with the regular, daily Lake Shore Limited. See if anyone will use corridor travel.
 #1545657  by SouthernRailway
 
mtuandrew wrote: Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:21 pm First, this is pretty terrible but also expected.

Second, this sounds like something of an opportunity. Perhaps Amtrak would consider keeping the opposite-day schedule for part of their routes - for instance CHI-MSP and DAL-SAN - and also running a half-distance Capitol Limited WAS-CLE interchanging at CLE with the regular, daily Lake Shore Limited. See if anyone will use corridor travel.
Agreed. I was thinking that instead of running a LD train with 2 locomotives and 6-7 cars, just run 2 separate trains, each with one locomotive, a coach and a hybrid coach/cafe and a sleeper and see if having 2 shorter trains per day helps.

And maybe Amtrak could cut prices. Prices this year are higher than last year. If Amtrak gets only 50% of the ridership, maybe cut fares 25% and see if ridership increases offset the price reduction.
 #1545668  by Roadgeek Adam
 
This is going to hasten the trip I had planned of BUF - CHI - SAS - LAX - NOL - NYP - BUF.

I'm already dealing with the headaches of booking 421 because of the tri-weekly service.
 #1545674  by lordsigma12345
 
I think if it was up to management they'd outright suspend certain routes instead of dropping frequencies on all of them, but that probably isn't an option so here we are. There is another stimulus bill possibly coming in July - we shall see if some congressional language makes it way into such a bill.
 #1545675  by gokeefe
 
For those who think this is a veiled attempt to permanently discontinue certain Long Distance services I can assure you that you're probably wrong.

A few reasons why:

1. Remember the first rule of government bureaucracy ... Self preservation at all costs.

I don't mean this in a trite sense but a pragmatic one. Amtrak is not going to suddenly declare themselves redundant and self-immolate. If you think they would then try and explain to me how they have managed to operate continuosly for close to 50 years. That is longer than at least one of the legacy railroads they took over from (GM&O).

2. Winter is Coming: In this case personified by "the kid from Scranton" aka "Amtrak Joe". If you think everyone in the building hasn't started calculating what they need to do to "hang on" until the possible Inauguration of a new administration you're wrong. Nothing in writing of course. Just "how much cash do we have to last through winter". 3x a week is a lot easier to restore to 7x a week than from 0x a week. This is a stalling tactic (which won't even take effect until less than 45 days before the Election).

3. Congress simply will not allow it and Amtrak knows it. Anderson only ever made one mistake and that was trying to cancel the Southwest Chief. Nobody wants to explain at the Town Hall back in the district why they "let them take our train away". Probably the most fortunate aspect of COVID for Amtrak is that it happened in an election year. They're simply untouchable right now, it's right up there with Mom and her apple pie.

There's more of course but this is a good start.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 #1545677  by gprimr1
 
I mean, on one hand, airlines have cut back service as a result of COVID, so I'm not totally against it as a temporary measure.

On the other hand, the timing is weird, since traffic is already been cut down due to lock downs, and things are reopening now, the only thing I could think of is maybe they are preparing for a second wave?
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