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.
Amtrak should clean up their own business before complaining about the freight RR’s
I recently took a few Amtrak routes and found out most Amtrak staff are courteous and helpful. But SOME staff are very rude. They like to make up their own rules and make it very difficult for the customers. Also the cars are freezing cold in the night, most passengers bring their own blankets and even sleeping bags. The staff told me there is no way they can adjust the temperature, they told me these trains are old, and “YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER.” My perception is the staff are not trained to do their job right and I should know better. I hope Amtrak management will help them learn the right attitude and listen to the customer complaints instead of arguing against their complaints.
1. The present nominees for the board of directors need approval.
2. The proposed law that all board of director meetings will be open needs passing.
3. All these secrets that Amtrak keep putting up has to stop. There are too many items that the public needs to know so congress can get that info. How can Amtrak say with a straight face that any stats are secrete due to competition? 1 – 2 % of market does not make it competitive.
4. The FRA waiver request to allow the loco signaling equipment to activate the signaling would allow more Superliners to go to LD trains.
5. No bonus until 80% of all equipment is available every day for passenger service and is used not parked. No hiding 80% equipment as not serviceable.
6. Service to provide all potential passengers not costs should be the operating metric.
7. Start route marketing campaigns to fill expanded train consists.
8. No retirement of any present equipment until all routes prove they are carrying all demand except for a few holiday periods. Why no extra equipment last Thanksgiving?
9. As soon as all present trains meet demand with present and new equipment start providing a 2nd or more train on same routes maybe 12 hours apart first to allow at least one train during freight RR work windows such as Crescent and LSL as a couple examples.
10. Congress make it easier to start new routes with same items above.
Tank you.
Thank you.
“Will step up efforts to return sidelined cars to service in FY-25 to expand the availability of seats and rooms” Does that mean that Amtrak also has plans to finally restore the Texas Eagle’s Sightseer Lounge like they promised three years ago?! It shouldn’t have been removed to begin with!!!
The coming of the single-level cars will be a great improvement for the Washington – Chicago segment of the new Miami – Chicago ‘Floridian’. Aside from the elimination of staircases, traditional dining service will be restored and there will be more headroom especially in sleeping accommodations where the upper berth would feel like a closed coffin in Superliner sleepers.
The new ‘Floridian’ will look like a decent long distance passenger train with four coaches, a cafe lounge, a full dining car, and two or three sleeping cars. This will be similar to Southern Railway’s streamlined Washington – Memphis ‘Tennessean’ at its prime in the early 1950s with Pullman cars to/from New York.
I can see this service possibly working if some non-governmental operation was running it. Since its Amtrak, I suspect it will turn out to be a heavy money loosing operation if it ever becomes operational. Amtrak would have to have a major make-over to actually function efficiently in what it does.
I feel for Bob Johnston — his detailed and thoughtful analysis each week, on a transportation provider that’s sinking into irrelevance …. in a nation that needs good train transportation more than ever.
I couldn’t agree more Charles. I once thought that maybe my grandchildren would have the option to travel by train. Unfortunately those hopes have faded.