Amtrak selling intra NEC seats on SB LD trains

[Heading North]

It's an interesting way to raise revenue, but I am not convinced that it will work in terms of customer experience and consistency (which, as we know, is a common Amtrak gripe). A few years ago I was on the Carolinian from NYP to WAS--once because it was cheapest, and a second time because I needed to check bags--and regular NEC passengers were fuming to the Conductor about the lack of a Quiet Car and their inability to sit in the Cafe for the trip. (I know a lot of people complain about the latter, but frankly, it is the equivalent of the Acela's table seats in each car for people who need to work while on SDs.)

I can picture it now: Why are you assigning me a seat? Where's the WiFi? Where's the Quiet Car?

 

[Bus Nut]

I can picture it now: Why are you assigning me a seat? Where's the WiFi? Where's the Quiet Car?

That's where that color coded timetable comes in handy... if anybody sees it.

Hopefully Marketing&Communications has a plan to use that kind of branding across platforms. It would be nice if it were more obvious on the website, actually, what kind of train you were pulling up. The website is functional for what it's worth but it is a little challenging to navigate. If you don't already know Amtrak you'll probably miss a lot.

Also fwiw, the French and German governments seem to do a very good job branding trains. ICE and TGV are like Acela, for example, but they also brand the slow locals, fast-conventional intercities, commuter trains, international, sleeper, etc, pretty well. Even as a tourist I've never had any trouble knowing what I was buying and what to expect more or less. Amtrak seems to have this problem saying this is first class, this is business class, this is second class (nobody wants to be second class, natch!) and having any drop of consistency across the country. I'm grateful to have this forum because posters here explain what to expect much better than Amtrak's website ever has. (Even if info is on the website you need to be able to find it... and you don't know what you don't know! Amtrak needs to get some outsiders who've never really taken the train to tell them what they experience with their website and make changes accordingly. Insiders are blinded to their own institutional knowledge.)

 

[Anderson]

Interesting thought on NB LDs: Why not just "open" them when those trains hit RVR, PTB, or LYH (at which point they're within the Regional "universe"), with a set of ersatz boarding times that can be "applied" based on when the train leaves that station? That'd be 2-4 hours' notice at WAS, which would probably grab some walk-up business, and they'd have an almost 100% certain count on "available space". This could, of course, be waived for super-peak times (Thanksgiving in particular)...but I also feel compelled to belatedly note that at Thanksgiving, timekeeping can go to hell in a handbasket because of the passenger loads at stations that don't usually get that level of traffic.(1)

Mind you, this would involve either programming an automatic release or doing something manually. However, I'd note that most of the time made up on these trains tends to be either RVR-ALX/WAS or at WAS. You don't tend to see large movements in timeliness at BAL, WIL, or PHL, and you can probably calculate minimum transit times and estimate from there. It also /shouldn't/ be hard to "brute force" a slab of potential timetables and just spit one out based on 5-10 minute intervals for a "putative LD train on the NEC" from 0700-1900 and just throw one up (even if it was done by issuing a slate of oddly-numbered tables for those trains (maybe in the 3000-series or somewhere like that?)).

(1) The plural of anecdote may not be data, but based on my experiences, those Regionals get slammed with so much traffic that they can be held up 5-10 minutes at some stops due to having to load twice their normal passenger count.

 

[NE933]

Sounds like a good plan.
The only hitch I see is that there probably isn't a tie in that takes train status into account.

I'd be somewhat annoyed had I walked up at WAS, seen "Hey, I can leave on the Silver Star in 30 minutes for a reasonable price!", booked said ticket and then walked into the waiting area to see that the train is actually running 5 hours late.

Exactly! That is the part I am not sure about. Too bad if that cannot be arranged. Without that, this idea will not work too well. Oh well.

The reservation system should take the train's current on-time, or lack of, status, and present it to the passenger at the ticket counter or on the computer screen. So ideally, if a train scheduled to leave Washington at 3PM is running 5 hours late, using Ryan's scenario, it would be presented as a choice for an 8PM departure. Somebody using QuikTrak or their laptop at or around 7PM would see this 5 hour late train as a choice, since its lateness places it perfectly for this customer needing an 8PM or so departure. Of course I don't know if the present reservation system has the capabilities to reveal everything that way.

 

[Anderson]

I don't think it does, which can get to be a bit annoying. Mind you, in theory you could still wrangle a walk-up ticket from a conductor...but when trains are far, far off schedule I know some people are going to bail while for others the "bad" time can actually be good.

The main problem is that if the five-hour-late train makes up an hour (say, at the DC pad) and it's listed as being five hours late in Arrow, you're going to have folks missing their train. With that said, it might not be the worst thing to, should a train fall far enough behind, just write off trying to make up a huge amount of time at the DC pad.

 

[OBS]

I don't think it does, which can get to be a bit annoying. Mind you, in theory you could still wrangle a walk-up ticket from a conductor...but when trains are far, far off schedule I know some people are going to bail while for others the "bad" time can actually be good.
The main problem is that if the five-hour-late train makes up an hour (say, at the DC pad) and it's listed as being five hours late in Arrow, you're going to have folks missing their train. With that said, it might not be the worst thing to, should a train fall far enough behind, just write off trying to make up a huge amount of time at the DC pad.

I think making up time on DC layover is important for several reasons. It may make a difference as to whether or not passengers are able to make connections to other trains either in PHL or NYP. Also depending on shop counts, NYP may be waiting for that engine (or sleeper or diner) to utilize on an outbound train, and the sooner that train makes NYP, the sooner the equipment can again be utilized.