How Amtrak’s long-distance capacity affects pricing: Analysis

WASHINGTON — It’s more expensive than ever to get into a bedroom or roomette on Amtrak’s overnight long-distance trains — if the accommodations are available at all on the preferred travel date. Coach passengers also endure high prices and sellouts when their destination is served by a once-daily, limited-capacity train that has an especially busy segment en route.

With many peaks and valleys of travel demand looming in the months ahead, Trains News Wire examined the relationship between how many rooms or seats are available and corresponding price variations.

Transportation companies rely on sophisticated computer programs to charge as much as possible for every departure without turning away customers. Fares rise as available space is sold; prices are lowered to fill vacant seats. From the carriers’ standpoint, this “yield management” is good business. Anyone examining the wide array of flights between airline hub cities or hourly Amtrak Northeast Corridor trains knows that prices can change dramatically depending upon departure time, day, and season, and may look much different for the same trip a week later.

These dynamics are exacerbated, but still apply, when there is one daily travel option, or less. Beginning in mid-September, News Wire started tracking three Amtrak long-distance operations where travelers are offered two sets of coach and sleeping car inventory on the same train. The table at right shows how equipment assignments on these trains vary. Amtrak no longer provides “percent sell-out” information — as it started doing during the pandemic — so comparative pricing is the only publicly available indicator of occupancy versus capacity.

At the same time, pricing was evaluated between Chicago and Washington, D.C., before and after Nov. 10, when ticketing inventory on Amtrak’s website showed the Capitol Limited would trade its Superliners for Amfleet II and Viewliner sleeping cars to and from Miami [see “Amtrak combines Capitol Limited, Silver Star …,” Sept. 23, 2024.]   

Less capacity equals higher fares, more sellouts

The Texas Eagle, Empire Builder, and Lake Shore Limited offer separate capacity choices for each departure, permitting evaluation of pricing based on different inventory subject to the same market demand.

Texas Eagle: Shortly after Labor Day, one Chicago-Los Angeles Superliner coach and sleeping car were added to the Eagle’s consist on the three days per week it connects with the triweekly Sunset Limited [see “Amtrak adds Texas Eagle capacity….,” News Wire, July 29, 2024]. This doubled the capacity in both classes south of St. Louis (a Chicago-St. Louis “cutoff coach” continues on all trains to absorb local corridor travel). Chicago-Dallas adult fares for coach seats climbed from $111 to $237 and from $415 to $612 for roomettes as departure dates neared, but there was always a less-expensive price and fewer sellouts on days the extra cars operated.

Empire Builder: A second Seattle coach has been shifted to the Southwest Chief, leaving only one through chair car to and from that city. Looking at Chicago-St. Paul pricing Sept. 4-23 in both directions, coach seats on the Portland, Ore., section were cheaper than on the Seattle section three times as often as they were more expensive. But with more sleeping car roomettes on the Seattle section, the price of that accommodation hovered in the narrow $228-$251 range while Portland section roomettes — thinned to accommodate the Chicago-based Sightseer lounge attendant — were mostly offered at prices between $313 and $470.

Lake Shore Limited. Looking at the common segment of both Boston and New York sections between Chicago and Albany-Rensselaer, N.Y., in mid-September, coach and sleeping car fares on both sections traded in a narrow range and were generally similar, but Viewliner roomette sellouts were more prevalent on the Boston section. A snapshot of Lake Shore departures this weekend (Oct. 4-6) revealed a total sellout of roomettes in the Boston car in both directions.

The Floridian: coach capacity expands; sleeping car rooms contract

The Chicago-Washington, D.C., Capitol Limited has consistently drawn the short straw during the last three years, limited at times to only one Superliner coach and sleeping car. Though recently two of each of those cars have been operating, the train often sells out or only offers the highest prices in both classes.

When single-level equipment is introduced Nov. 10 as the train becomes the Chicago-Miami Floridian, the table below shows how capacity is set to change when four Amfleet II coaches and two Viewliner sleepers replace the Superliners. Amtrak spokeswoman Kimberly Woods tells News Wire that a third Viewliner sleeping car is planned for “spring,” but she declined to be more specific.

Several sources have confirmed that the company had stopped doing mandatory four-year brake overhauls on at least nine stored Viewliner I sleeping cars since 2021; five would be required to add a third Floridian sleeping car.

The table below shows that the move to single-level equipment will cut salable bedrooms in half and reduce the number of roomettes available. Two different fare “snapshots” are shown: one on Sept. 12 and another on Oct. 3, after the through service was announced. Pricing analysis for Chicago-Washington fares was expanded to include the pre-Thanksgiving holiday period of Nov. 13-21.

Note the sleeping accommodation price jumps around the Nov. 10 changeover date. The large number of sellouts could be a function of already-booked Superliner patrons being accommodated in Viewliner equipment, but high-end fares for both roomettes and bedrooms rise substantially.

In coaches, where seating capacity has expanded, the opposite occurs. Chicago-Washington fares in both directions for Nov 13-21 held at $126 for all departures. As those dates approach, prices will certainly rise as tickets are sold, but the greater availability from a cheaper starting point will clearly make travel more available and affordable.

Amtrak says it is making a concerted effort to step up overhauls in fiscal 2025 that will increase the number of available seats and rooms. The tables confirm that expanding the fleet to meet demand will increase Amtrak’s long-distance train mobility and revenue growth potential.