Fare hike on NEC?

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Barciur

Barciur

OBS Chief
Joined
Aug 13, 2012
Messages
599
Location
Lancaster, PA
Has there been a fare hike that we missed? Or did I miss a topic on it?

I just checked trains from Lancaster to New York and they are at $58 while previously they cost $56. In fact, just last week I bought a ticket for $56. NYP-PHL lowest bucket is also showing $54 as opposed to $53 previously.

Also, Lancaster to Newark costs exactly the same as Lancaster to NY Penn Station, whereas it used to cost $5 less.
 
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That's weird, because I know that back in the spring of 2013, I paid $56 for my trip to New York, it was the same price. So if they went up twice a year, it would have changed twice since then (Fall 2013 and Spring 2014). But it's only changed now.

And Lancaster to Philly changed just once since at least a few years (at least 3), although I suppose that might be different due to it being supported by the state.
 
Looks like the Vermonter was hit with a hike as well. Low bucket from WAB-NYP used to be $58, now it's $61. Mid bucket was $68, now $70. High bucket was $87, now $89...
 
Yes, there has been another fare hike for the NEC. Looks like the cheapest saver fare for WAS to NYP on a Regional has gone from $49 to $52. The NEC continues to get ever more expensive. I keep thinking that Amtrak has hit the ceiling of what the NEC travel market will bear, but Acela and NE Regional ridership continues to grow.
 
Looks like I'll be updating my Acela/Regional fare tables...

For what it's worth, sometimes they don't hike the fares, sometimes they do. It just varies based on how things are going.
 
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The NY to Boston fares have jumped significantly (and they were already pretty outrageous) in just the past few months. It's crazy...
 
As much as $146 one way for a simple regional train from Boston to NY?????????
 
Price increases are sometimes necessary, especially with high demand, but Amtrak should be careful to not overprice things. There comes a point where people will switch to taking buses, which often offer much cheaper fares that even a NE Regional train. Even flying is sometimes less expensive.
 
When a round trip regional ticket between NY and boston is almost $300 something is wrong...even purchased a few weeks in advance. How much higher can they go? Not long ago (less than 2 years) even the highest priced regional trains on the route were about half the price.
 
I understand that, really I do but I've been taking this line regularly for 24 years and I've *never* seen anything like what has happened during the last year or two. Prices doubling and tripling. And rising dramatically from day to day which never happened until recently. I've even bought a ticket the day before a trip and then seen the price drop an hour before the train departure. It's incredibly unsettling and getting to be outrageously unaffordable. I love the train and have been an incredibly loyal customer but the speed and dramatic nature of fare hikes is just too much way too quickly. Makes me so sad and frustrated. I think I'll have to got back to taking he bus which I vowed I'd never do again after one too many bad experiences :(
 
Take a look at last minute air Shuttle fares.

Whatever is deemed the best travel option between BOS-NYC can command high prices. Depending on exactly where you are going, the Shuttle can be slightly faster, but the ease of the Acela is highly desirable.
 
Ok, I'm going to post the details in a dedicated thread on the topic, but I'll throw down some insight into the NEC situation:
-On NEC-North (that is to say New York-Boston), Amtrak is limited as to the number of trains they can run by a tangle of agreements with Metro-North and the Coast Guard (the latter due to the movable bridges). It's something like 37 trains per day, which translates into something like 9 Regionals and 10 Acelas per day.

-This in turn leads to a bit of a mess where Regionals are selling out and passengers are getting pushed to the Acela...which in turn leads to a perverse situation where top bucket in coach on the Regional is $5 less than middle bucket on the Acela. Cue Regional Business Class being priced roughly in line with Acela Business Class (low bucket non-discount BC NYP-BOS on the Regional is $112; on the Acela it is $113 at the moment).

This is basically Amtrak desperately trying to manage demand that is flying out of control. The recent fare hikes have been a symptom of this...the alternative is trains that are always sold out, which is a worse problem to have for a host of reasons.
 
http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/53224-acelaregional-fares-hiked/?p=565537

I have a dedicated thread where I post fare checks, largely for reference purposes (so I can check and see what has happened in a given timeframe...I just wish I had a string of these records going back a ways. Here's the rough change list since August 2013:
Acela WAS-NYP: +6-8 for BC, +3 for FC

Acela WAS-BOS: +5-9 for BC, +3 for FC

Acela NYP-BOS: +4-6 for BC, +2 for FC

Regional WAS-NYP: +3-5 for Coach, +3 for BC

Regional WAS-BOS: +3-6 for Coach, +3 for BC

Regional NYP-BOS: +3-4 for Coach, +2 for BC

Thanksgiving Surcharges on Flexible tickets:
-WAS-NYP: $4 Regional, $5 Acela
-WAS-BOS: $4 Regional, $6 Acela
-NYP-BOS: $3 Regional, $3 Acela
 
Anderson said:
-On NEC-North (that is to say New York-Boston), Amtrak is limited as to the number of trains they can run by a tangle of agreements with Metro-North and the Coast Guard (the latter due to the movable bridges). It's something like 37 trains per day, which translates into something like 9 Regionals and 10 Acelas per day.
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The maximum allowed per agreement on the Shore Line East is 39 trains a day. Which works out to 19 trains each way on weekdays. As Anderson notes, this has become a serious capacity constraint on the northern NEC with fixed seating capacity Acelas and Amtrak presumably adding a coach car or two to the Regionals operating north of NYP for modest additional capacity. With the result that Regionals are selling out the lower bucket seats further and further in advance.
There is room under the 39 train a day limit to add trains north of NHV on Saturday and Sunday, but Metro-North might not agree to more trains on the New Haven line while they are working to complete the catenary replacement by 2017 along with track repair work. Significant capacity increase on the NYP-BOS segment via an Inland Route Regional (or two), new HSR trainsets with 425-450 seats are years away and I have seen nothing about renegotiating the 39 train a day limit in the near term, so there is no incentive for Amtrak to lower NYP-BOS higher bucket prices.
 
And the monthly pass went up from PVD - BOS $20/month. I knwo it really only comes out to $1/day but since my H started commuthing his monthly pass has climbed from around $350/month to now $398/month. That is like a 14% hike in 5 years.

I blame congress for their general nonsense in dictating how much a monthly pass should cost.
 
This one can't be blamed on the dis-functional Congress except indirectly since Congress won't fund Amtrak adequately, which results in there being more demand then supply, thus higher fares!
 
RyanS said:
amamba said:
I blame congress for their general nonsense in dictating how much a monthly pass should cost.
Click to expand...
Say what? That's a new one for me.
Click to expand...
Hrmm...perhaps my research is off.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/national/10amtrak.htmland http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/nyregion/28amtrak.html?pagewanted=print

So amtrak decided in 2005 to tie the monthly passes into the cost of the regular tickets. Here is a quote from the article (fair use, ok to quote briefly?)

"After raising the ticket prices, Amtrak will recalculate the prices of the multiride tickets and passes so that they equal 50 percent of the full fare."

So right now, every time the regular fare goes up, the monthly pass goes up, too.

For some reason I thought that this action is 2005 was tied to some sort of congressional meddling and budget appropriations. But I take that back!! Now we can all be more educated about the topic.
 
At some point, though, which my H and I were just discussing, we stop coming out ahead by living in a cheaper city and him commuting to a more expensive one.

Because $4,800 years to spend on train tickets for daily commuting purposes is a lot. Something about it hitting that $400 mark is psychological to me over the $300 mark.
 
Thanks for the helpful insights. What an unfortunate incredibly expensive mess.
 
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