Viewliner II Delivery/Production

[Arlington]

Would have thought this might have been obvious, but apparently not: the food service was what made the lousy transportation tolerable.

This hypothesis has been net disproved by the market.

On the Silver Starvation, lower prices raised ridership faster than the removal of food lost it So focusing on food ignores the more important effects of (1) a bed, and (2) price.

Lower prices were not just a gimmick--they were the fruit of removing costly diners and resulted in reduced losses.

[electricron]

Would have thought this might have been obvious, but apparently not: the food service was what made the lousy transportation tolerable.

This hypothesis has been net disproved by the market.

On the Silver Starvation, lower prices raised ridership faster than the removal of food lost it So focusing on food ignores the more important effects of (1) a bed, and (2) price.

Lower prices were not just a gimmick--they were the fruit of removing costly diners and resulted in reduced losses.

Maybe we received different lessons learned from the Silver Starvation results? I got it's losses dropped significantly while ridership remained close to the same - not quite what you stated above. Can anyone provide the data proving it one way or both ways when compared to the Silver Feast?

[Arlington]

I got it's losses dropped significantly while ridership remained close to the same - not quite what you stated above. Can anyone provide the data proving it one way or both ways when compared to the Silver Feast?

Ridership in Sleeper Class was up significantly(back when they separately reported it).
Such as:

So in the preliminary full year report

We see that the Silver Starvation is
+ 7.5% in Sleeper ridership (vs FY 2015, which included 3 months of no diner)
- 11/9% in Sleeper revenue (about $965k less, from $8m down to $7.1m)
And costs reductions were $13.9m (vs reductions of $2.8m on the Meteor).

Stay focused on rising Sleeper ridership during diner-removal. This is exact disproof of the blogger belief that bloggers are representative of all Sleeper users. The reality is that folks coming into Sleeper class thanks to the no-food price outnumber those driven out by a lack of food. This is also why the Star's Diner is not coming back (and why the conclusion is that Amtrak is being smart, not bad faith, in making the removal permanent).

I don't see any relevance of Coach ridership (up or down) to a diner (there or not) that was not part of the coach experience. Coach ridership is 100% distracting. And with overall ridership being 90% Coach, overall ridership is 90% distracting. Sleeper Ridership is 100% relevant.

[electricron]

I got it's losses dropped significantly while ridership remained close to the same - not quite what you stated above. Can anyone provide the data proving it one way or both ways when compared to the Silver Feast?

Ridership in Sleeper Class was up significantly(back when they separately reported it).
Such as:

So in the preliminary full year report

We see that the Silver Starvation is
+ 7.5% in Sleeper ridership (vs FY 2015, which included 3 months of no diner)
- 11/9% in Sleeper revenue (about $965k less, from $8m down to $7.1m)
And costs reductions were $13.9m (vs reductions of $2.8m on the Meteor).

Stay focused on rising Sleeper ridership during diner-removal. This is exact disproof of the blogger belief that bloggers are representative of all Sleeper users. The reality is that folks coming into Sleeper class thanks to the no-food price outnumber those driven out by a lack of food. This is also why the Star's Diner is not coming back (and why the conclusion is that Amtrak is being smart, not bad faith, in making the removal permanent).

I don't see any relevance of Coach ridership (up or down) to a diner (there or not) that was not part of the coach experience. Coach ridership is 100% distracting. And with overall ridership being 90% Coach, overall ridership is 90% distracting. Sleeper Ridership is 100% relevant.

Yes, the sleepers ridership and revenues were up on the Starvation, but how did it compare to the Feast? Wasn’t it also up?

[mtuandrew]

If it’s the Silver Starve, it ought to be the Silver Meatier

[FatNoah]

The link earlier in the thread appears to be dead, but I believe this is the report in question: https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/proj ... udited.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Based on that, Silver Meatier (get it?) ridership was down 3.7% for the period.

[electricron]

The link earlier in the thread appears to be dead, but I believe this is the report in question: https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/proj ... udited.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Based on that, Silver Meatier (get it?) ridership was down 3.7% for the period.

Taking a close look at your link, and comparing Star vs Meteor statistics, there’s definitely a mix bag.

Star ridership September 2016 vs 2015 down 6.1%
Meteor ridership September 2016 vs 2015 down 8.1%
Star ridership FY2016 vs FY2015 (October to September) down 5%
Meteor ridership FY2016 vs FY2015 (October to September) down 1.9%
It’s the Sleeper only statistics that shows any improvements at all for the Star.
Sleeper Star September 2016 vs 2015 ridership down 16% (2630 - 2206 = 424)
Sleeper Meteor September 2016 vs 2015 ridership down 3% (2993 - 2903 = 90)
Sleeper Star FY2016 vs FY 2015 ridership up 7.5% (35151 - 32703 = 2448)
Sleeper Meteor FY 2016 vs FY2015 ridership down 3.7% (43434 - 41847 = 1587)

While it is proper to point out a very successful year overall, there’s still the unsuccessful one month.
I wonder which trend will continue on for the next few months and years?

[SouthernRailway]

We see that the Silver Starvation is
+ 7.5% in Sleeper ridership (vs FY 2015, which included 3 months of no diner)
- 11/9% in Sleeper revenue (about $965k less, from $8m down to $7.1m)
And costs reductions were $13.9m (vs reductions of $2.8m on the Meteor).

Who cares about number of riders--what matters, since Amtrak is a business, is that revenues from sleeping cars went down. Costs of providing food went down even faster.

There should be a way to have higher sleeping car ridership AND higher or steady sleeping car revenues. I'd think that offering decent hot meals, even prepackaged, would do it.

[east point]

For sleeper revenue a couple measurements. Sleeper revenue - sleeper costs ( No diner after change.) Additionally the average distance in passenger miles before and after .

[Mackensen]

Agreed. Most of the bad news has been anecdotal and come from three sources - Trains Mag, PTJ, and NARP. Most of their writers and personnel seem to be of the same mind: "We must preserve A-day which has the mission of preserving 1959". Hard pass... makes no sense and probably doesn't make financial sense either.

I found it rather telling that Bob Johnston at Trains wrote several pieces on the changes, dwelt at length on the supposed difficulty passengers were having with the packaging (I did not observe such and had no real problems myself), and avoided the question of food quality. Make of that what you will. Admittedly, I'm an atypical sleeper passenger. I travel on business. I'm under 40. I've had good times in the dining car but I could take it or leave it as a social function (I could definitely leave listening to railfans in their 60s and 70s complaining about management).

[gokeefe]

There should be a way to have higher sleeping car ridership AND higher or steady sleeping car revenues. I'd think that offering decent hot meals, even prepackaged, would do it.

The answer is not in the food. It's in improving capacity.

[FatNoah]

The answer is not in the food. It's in improving capacity.

I agree with this. The family and I make an annual pilgrimage to Lakeland, FL to visit the in-laws. Typically, we'd ride the Silver Star until the diner was removed. At that point, the price difference for a roomette (we'd get 2) between the Star and the Meteor was well typically $150+. As a consequence, it's been much harder to even find available rooms on the Star, unless booking many, many months out.

Obviously this is my own experience and represents bookings at higher demand times, but it does seem to indicate there are supply constraints that have a negative affect on ridership.

[bostontrainguy]

The answer is not in the food. It's in improving capacity.

I agree with this. The family and I make an annual pilgrimage to Lakeland, FL to visit the in-laws. Typically, we'd ride the Silver Star until the diner was removed. At that point, the price difference for a roomette (we'd get 2) between the Star and the Meteor was well typically $150+. As a consequence, it's been much harder to even find available rooms on the Star, unless booking many, many months out.

Obviously this is my own experience and represents bookings at higher demand times, but it does seem to indicate there are supply constraints that have a negative affect on ridership.

My experience is that the Star usually has 2 sleepers and the Meteor 3. Why aren't they adding sleepers then?

[gokeefe]

My experience is that the Star usually has 2 sleepers and the Meteor 3. Why aren't they adding sleepers then?

Not enough cars in the fleet.

[F40CFan]

Then I would think if the Star is considered a sleeper passenger magnet, I'd transfer one of the sleepers from the Meteor over to the Star and cash in until CAF delivers the new sleepers.