neroden
Engineer
Tampa-Miami is very busy.The only thing I can think of is the SS has a large number of passengers traveling only a very short distance that inflates the passenger count while adding very little to the total revenue.
That depends on the number of coach passengers using the dining car. My estimate a while back was that a dining car cost at least $3.8 million per year, including foregone revenue from roomette sales (a number which might be low). If we assume that each coach passenger also spends $35 in the dining car, we'd need about 108,500 passengers per year to use the dining car. This is pretty easily met on the Silver Meteor -- it only requires about 20% of the coach passengers (and some may have multiple meals and pay more than $35).Put another way, if the SS diner is returned to service (and SS sleeper prices increased) we might expect the average sleeper revenue per passenger on the SS to increase $35 (to restore the FY15 difference of $66). Is $35 per sleeper passenger enough to justify the returen of the diner to the SS? Does it even matter?
On the Star it also only requires about 20% of the coach passengers to patronize the dining car. But with more short-hop riders, it's not so clear-cut. I still think it's probably profitable.
Dining cars (like every other damn thing on a railroad) like high volumes.
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