NE corridor carved out from Amtrak

[Drake Tungsten]

Sea of Japan? Do you mean the Inland Sea? If so, only the oldest of the bridges (the Seto-ohashi) has a train line on it. The amazing Akashi bridge and the series of bridges on the Shimanami road are for cars only.

At any rate, one rail bridge linking existing train lines in Chugoku and Shikoku doesn't even make up for the train lines abandoned in southern Shikoku alone.

[DanS]

You can never have too many train threads.

[Adam Smith]

A Case Study

So the wife, kids, and I are going to New York City for a weekend. Do the tourist thing, see a show, visit with Auntie K who lives in Brooklyn. I figure that if we drive up (about 230 miles each way) between the wear and tear on the car, gas, tolls, parking in NYC, value of time saved from a faster train trip, and allowance for general hassle, I would be willing to pay about $300 and change to go by train instead.

I check Amtrak's website, and call their reservations center just to be sure. They have a group rate of $369 round trip for the four of us. Its a shade more than I wanted to pay, but I'll take it. But wait a minute. The group rate is not available on weekends. If we take the train its going to cost us $624. Forget that, we'll drive. (Note that we would still drive even if we had to pay an additional $20 or even $30 for gas.)

Amtrak's pricing is clearly screwed up. They've got a variable cost of running a train (or additional cars on an existing train), plus some contribution to the fixed cost of their right of way. If they are going to price their trips above the full cost of driving, then nobody is going to use their service, and they get no contribution to their fixed costs or anything else.

Now you might argue that Amtrak is catering to those people who can't travel by car. But such people are clearly a distinct minority of Amtrak's potential customers. You might also argue that there's a lot more demand for personal travel over the weekend, so the price is higher. But Amtrak only runs about half as many trains on the weekend as they do during the week, so they clearly have room to add trains to meet this demand and lower the price.

If Amtrak ran more trains on the weekend, at rates that were below the full cost of driving, then they would cover their variable costs and have a larger contrtibution to fixed costs of right of way, etc. As it is, people like me are walking away from their service. And there's probably a lot of us. I don't see how Amtrak is going to make it, even in the Northeast Corridor, with pricing this screwed up.

DanS:

Just saw your earlier comment. My guess is that Lautenberg's assessment of the politics is that he stands a better chance of getting money for NJ with an intact Amtrak than with a dismembered Amtrak, 35 years of contrary experience notwithstanding.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Just saw your earlier comment. My guess is that Lautenberg's assessment of the politics is that he stands a better chance of getting money for NJ with an intact Amtrak than with a dismembered Amtrak, 35 years of contrary experience notwithstanding.

NJ already gets a pittance of what it pays to the government (on a dollar for dollar basis). I'm sure without Amtrack, that number would drop and definetly would be something a Republican would campaign on (both parties in NJ have said they'd "bring more money to NJ from Washington" since I can remember).

[Timexwatch]

Re: A Case Study

Originally posted by Adam Smith
So the wife, kids, and I are going to New York City for a weekend. Do the tourist thing, see a show, visit with Auntie K who lives in Brooklyn. I figure that if we drive up (about 230 miles each way) between the wear and tear on the car, gas, tolls, parking in NYC, value of time saved from a faster train trip, and allowance for general hassle, I would be willing to pay about $300 and change to go by train instead.

I check Amtrak's website, and call their reservations center just to be sure. They have a group rate of $369 round trip for the four of us. Its a shade more than I wanted to pay, but I'll take it. But wait a minute. The group rate is not available on weekends. If we take the train its going to cost us $624. Forget that, we'll drive. (Note that we would still drive even if we had to pay an additional $20 or even $30 for gas.)

Amtrak's pricing is clearly screwed up. They've got a variable cost of running a train (or additional cars on an existing train), plus some contribution to the fixed cost of their right of way. If they are going to price their trips above the full cost of driving, then nobody is going to use their service, and they get no contribution to their fixed costs or anything else.

Now you might argue that Amtrak is catering to those people who can't travel by car. But such people are clearly a distinct minority of Amtrak's potential customers. You might also argue that there's a lot more demand for personal travel over the weekend, so the price is higher. But Amtrak only runs about half as many trains on the weekend as they do during the week, so they clearly have room to add trains to meet this demand and lower the price.

If Amtrak ran more trains on the weekend, at rates that were below the full cost of driving, then they would cover their variable costs and have a larger contrtibution to fixed costs of right of way, etc. As it is, people like me are walking away from their service. And there's probably a lot of us. I don't see how Amtrak is going to make it, even in the Northeast Corridor, with pricing this screwed up.

DanS:

Just saw your earlier comment. My guess is that Lautenberg's assessment of the politics is that he stands a better chance of getting money for NJ with an intact Amtrak than with a dismembered Amtrak, 35 years of contrary experience notwithstanding.

Moral of the story: Take the Chinatown Bus

[:) Smiley]

Maybe those bus operators can be invited to take over the railroad.