Cost of sleeper service

[rtabern]

Did Amtrak always charge rail fare on top of the coach (or rail) fare?

I'm looking at some old ticket stubs I had from 1996 and 1997... and the fare spot for the "rail fare" showed $0.00 and just showed the bedroom price.

Not sure if this is because the pricing system changed or because I was 16 at the time and my parents were paying the rail fare?

 

[Trogdor]

Did Amtrak always charge rail fare on top of the coach (or rail) fare?

I'm looking at some old ticket stubs I had from 1996 and 1997... and the fare spot for the "rail fare" showed $0.00 and just showed the bedroom price.

Not sure if this is because the pricing system changed or because I was 16 at the time and my parents were paying the rail fare?

In the latter case, it would make more sense for the accommodation charge to be $0 and the rail fare to have some other value, since the accommodation charge would have (possibly) been on one of their tickets.

Other possibility, if it was a connection with a through fare (AAA-BBB-CCC) for the rail fare, then the first ticket would have the total rail fare and each subsequent ticket for that combined-fare trip would have a $0 rail fare, but each individual segment still has its own accommodation charge (there are no through fares for accommodations).

 

[Anderson]

Did Amtrak always charge rail fare on top of the coach (or rail) fare?

I'm looking at some old ticket stubs I had from 1996 and 1997... and the fare spot for the "rail fare" showed $0.00 and just showed the bedroom price.

Not sure if this is because the pricing system changed or because I was 16 at the time and my parents were paying the rail fare?

In the latter case, it would make more sense for the accommodation charge to be $0 and the rail fare to have some other value, since the accommodation charge would have (possibly) been on one of their tickets.

Other possibility, if it was a connection with a through fare (AAA-BBB-CCC) for the rail fare, then the first ticket would have the total rail fare and each subsequent ticket for that combined-fare trip would have a $0 rail fare, but each individual segment still has its own accommodation charge (there are no through fares for accommodations).

I've run into this; a pretty standard example is that I'll travel NPN/RVR-WAS-CHI-OSC. So, looking at my stub for WAS-CHI, the stub lists a rail fare of $0, an accommodation charge of $0, and a total of $325.10. Likewise, on 97 on the way home on that trip, I have a stub that lists $345.80 as a total (with neither an accommodation charge nor a railfare). In both cases, those fares would cover everything to/from CHI, but for whatever reason, Amtrak likes to lock some of the eastern segments together with the to/from CHI LD trains (but not the trains beyond Chicago).

As another point this thread has brought up, I'm beginning to wonder if Amtrak might not want to reconsider how much they knock the coach fare down for second/third people in bedrooms/roomettes. Cutting that first coach fare back for the roomette (or a second one for the bedroom) may make sense, but I've seen the prices go "upside down" for two in coach vs. two in a roomette, and the main culprit isn't the roomette price...it's the knock-to-lowest-bucket rule for the underlying fare.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Shut up, Anderson. Amtrak reads these forums, you know.

 

[Sky Pilot]

Anderson's right, though. My daughter and I benefitted from this anomoly last year. The sleeper bedroom price on a 3 day advanced purchase from RVR to NPN was actually less expensive than two coach tickets. It helped that she was under 16 so her fare was half of low bucket. That was a no-brainer decision and my wife and friends who were not on the trip had trouble understanding why we would take a sleeper for a day-only journey in the first place or why it would be less expensive. The meals were a pleasant bonus. On the way back we had a roomette for the same reason. if you're travel plans are flexible and short notice and the rooms are going unsold, it pays to consider that option. The trip was great fun and very relaxing.

Blue skies ..

Edited for typos.

 

[Trogdor]

Anderson's right, though. My daughter and I benefitted from this anomoly last year. The sleeper bedroom price on a 3 day advanced purchase from RVR to NPN was actually less expensive than two coach tickets. It helped that she was under 16 so her fare was half of low bucket. That was a no-brainer decision and my wife and friends who were not on the trip had trouble understanding why we would take a sleeper for a day-only journey in the first place or why it would be less expensive. The meals were a pleasant bonus. On the way back we had a roomette for the same reason. if you're travel plans are flexible and short notice and the rooms are going unsold, it pays to consider that option. The trip was great fun and very relaxing.

Blue skies ..

Edited for typos.

I'm curious how you managed to book a sleeper from Richmond to Newport News last year.

 

[jis]

I'm curious how you managed to book a sleeper from Richmond to Newport News last year.

Maybe we all missed the re-introduction of Sleeper service on 66/67!

 

[DingDong]

Japanese railroads track on additional charges for being an expresses (any long distance train like Amtrak is to say, MARC, etc), an additional fee for reserved seat vs unreserved, first class vs standard class, etc. but EVERYONE pays the basic rail fare - the cost to get from point A to B.

Just standard stuff in the railroad biz. I think Europe and India are similar, too...

No. India is not similar. In India there are separate tariffs for each class of travel and train class (Passenger vs. Mail/Express) and even for specific trains like Rajdhanis and Shatabdis. They are not presented as basic transportation plus surcharge, but as a lump-sum.

Via no longer breaks out rail and accommodation, and their prices are quoted per person, not per accommodation. Personally, I like the traditional rail fare + accommodation that Amtrak uses.

I just bought a bunk on a night train from Basel to Duesseldorf (the full route is Zurich to Amsterdam) and it broke out the price: the base rail fare plus an accommodation charge. I'm not sure if it's an SBB train or a DB train (I bought my ticket on the DB website), but someone in Europe does it the same as Amtrak.

My question: in Europe you can buy one bunk in a room with five or three other people. This is pretty standard practice for overnight trains and doesn't cost much more than just buying a seat. Why doesn't Amtrak let you do this? And was this ever possible in the US? When did it stop?

 

[Ispolkom]

My question: in Europe you can buy one bunk in a room with five or three other people. This is pretty standard practice for overnight trains and doesn't cost much more than just buying a seat. Why doesn't Amtrak let you do this? And was this ever possible in the US? When did it stop?

I can't think of any American railroad that had strangers share compartments. Of course, up to World War 2, there weren't many sleeping cars with more than a couple compartments. Most had sections. In that case, the upper and lower bunks could be sold to strangers, though in practice that didn't happen so often because Pullman had difficulty selling upper bunks. According to one source, by the 1930s 80% of passengers chose lower bunks. Sections lingered on until the beginning of Amtrak, though I don't know that Amtrak ever used section sleepers.

American railroads tended to give sleeping car passengers more and more privacy, with the introduction of roomettes, double bedrooms, etc., and the gradual disappearance of sections. I doubt Amtrak would be willing to try something different.

 

[zephyr17]

My question: in Europe you can buy one bunk in a room with five or three other people. This is pretty standard practice for overnight trains and doesn't cost much more than just buying a seat. Why doesn't Amtrak let you do this? And was this ever possible in the US? When did it stop?

Never stopped because it never was available. The closest things, as Ipsolkom pointed out, were open sections. Enclosed accomodations were always private and only sold to one party. The railroads marketed them for their privacy, and they basically pushed the sections out. One thing that kept some sections alive was the US Government would only reimburse for a lower berth when traveling on government business, so some section accomodations tended to be kept where there was a lot of government traffic.

As an aside, I wonder how acceptable couchette type accomodations would be in the US? Not to say they wouldn't be, but I think it is more of a jump. I know I wasn't very comfortable with them in Europe, although I recognized their value enough to use them.

BTW-Amtrak never had sections. All the sleeping car runs they inherited were all room, and private room cars were all they got. In fact, I can't think of any sections available immediately before A-Day, although that isn't to say there weren't a few.

Via probably kept theirs because all the sleepers in the huge CP Canadian order were mixed section/room cars (Manor and Chateau). Those were relatively rare in the US, most US roads streamlined sleepers were all room cars and all section cars. So dropping the sections just mean dropping those cars. For example, for the California Zephyr, they withdrew the section cars around 1960, and the participating railroads rebuilt them as flat-top coaches (Silver Aspen and Silver Pine come to mind).