How and when does Amtrak decide to add cars to a route?

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Matthew H Fish

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May 28, 2019
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I add a series of related questions, things that seemed pretty obvious, but that I didn't know. They are too long to fit in the subject line, but the subject line basically addresses how many cars Amtrak puts on a train.

For Amtrak's long distance routes, I imagine they can have a variable number of cars. As more people buy tickets, they add more cars. They also add more staff, I imagine.

So here is an example: If there is an Empire Builder leaving Chicago on Friday, do they decide by Wednesday whether it will be 10 or 12 cars? Do they start calling up extra staff at the same time if they have extra riders? How much does it cost Amtrak to add another car to a route? Is there a limited amount of cars that one train could take?

I know this is a "behind the scenes" question, that not everyone would know, but I am curious if anyone has any ideas.
 
The first question would probably be: Where would Amtrak find those extra cars, especially on short notice. There are a few at critical locations, but they are primarily intended to use when needed to replace a bad-ordered car, protect an extremely late train so the next day's train can leave on time, or after an emergency. There are not a lot of pax cars sitting around waiting to be pressed into service because advance ticket sales are unusually high for a given day. Sad but true.

Another quandary: Even if a car could be added to that Friday EB in Chicago, would there be a similar number of riders for its return trip to Chicago?
 
I have no idea. So does Amtrak just always have the same number of cars for the Empire Builder? (or any other long distance train route) Does it at least change seasonally?
 
The consists tend to change seasonally. I don’t know the exact numbers for each route but I do know that in the summer they add a sleeping car and at least one coach to the California Zephyr. I assume it’s similar for the chief. The empire builder usually had one Portland sleeper year around. The number of Seattle sleepers varies between 2 and 3 iirc. I suspect there are additional coaches added too. .
 
Matthew H Fish said:
For Amtrak's long distance routes, I imagine they can have a variable number of cars. As more people buy tickets, they add more cars.
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This is how it ideally would work, since the marginal cost of adding cars to a train is low, and this would allow Amtrak to bring in a lot more revenue at busy travel times. But as Skyline points out, they haven't had the equipment available to do this in recent years.

Sometime in the mid-1990s, around when the first Viewliner sleepers came online, all of the older "heritage" cars -- i.e., cars that were handed down from the private railroads before Amtrak and which lacked the retention toilets required by court rulings of the early '90s -- were withdrawn from service and sold or scrapped. On the eastern long-distance routes, consists were standardized at that time, so the Crescent, the Florida trains, and the New York section of the Lake Shore all began operating with a baggage car, two sleepers, a diner, lounge and four coaches. (Some of these trains, such as the Crescent, had previously had much longer consists of 14 cars or more at busy times.) The standardized consists meant that Amtrak began selling out and turning away passengers at peak travel times, and the company jacked up sleeper fares to maximize revenue from the limited number of rooms remaining. They also took other measures to ration the available space: For example, on the Crescent, Amtrak wouldn't book more than one coach worth of seats on any departure for travelers going between Charlottesville and Lynchburg and points north, so as to preserve some availability for travelers to/from points farther south.

At least a couple of times in recent years, Amtrak did manage to add two extra coaches to the Crescent for the Christmas holiday period, but deviations from the standard consists have been rare in the East.

This winter, however, with the loss of dining service driving down ridership on the eastern trains, I have seen a number of departures with fewer cars than normal, so it seems Amtrak management has the flexibility to cut cars from the consists if bookings are lagging. A case in point: the eastbound Lake Shore at Albany yesterday had just one coach for Boston (instead of the usual two), and the New York section had just two coaches (instead of the normal four).
 
fdaley said:
This is how it ideally would work, since the marginal cost of adding cars to a train is low, and this would allow Amtrak to bring in a lot more revenue at busy travel times. But as Skyline points out, they haven't had the equipment available to do this in recent years.
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Thank you for the information.
It is too bad that they have these issues, because as you said, the marginal cost is intrinsically low. That is one of the big differences between airplanes and trains: If you have 90 people who need to fly on an 80 seat plane, you have to pay for two planes to do it. If you have 90 people who need to take an 80 seat train, you add another car, and it probably costs 10% more, just the price of additional fuel and prepping and cleaning a train car.
 
They do vary the consists seasonally. Summer will often have more cars than winter in most of the LD trains.

While they can make short-term decisions to add/remove a car, they usually follow the seasonal operating plan with the possible exception of certain high-ridership events, which are typically known far enough in advance. There isn’t often a “oh, this train is sold out, let’s add another car” occasion mostly because, as noted, there isn’t enough to do so on a consistent basis.

That said, it does happen from time to time depending on the situation and level of influence of folks at Amtrak who are aware of/care about it.

For example, a few years ago AU had a gathering in St. Louis with a side trip planned to Kansas City. When members started to book, it was discovered that the day we were planning to travel was sold out (go figure) because of an event somewhere along the route that was a heavy draw. A couple of emails were sent, and four or five additional coaches were added to that weekend’s trains (which still pretty much all sold out).
 
Trogdor said:
They do vary the consists seasonally. Summer will often have more cars than winter in most of the LD trains.

While they can make short-term decisions to add/remove a car, they usually follow the seasonal operating plan with the possible exception of certain high-ridership events, which are typically known far enough in advance. There isn’t often a “oh, this train is sold out, let’s add another car” occasion mostly because, as noted, there isn’t enough to do so on a consistent basis.

That said, it does happen from time to time depending on the situation and level of influence of folks at Amtrak who are aware of/care about it.

For example, a few years ago AU had a gathering in St. Louis with a side trip planned to Kansas City. When members started to book, it was discovered that the day we were planning to travel was sold out (go figure) because of an event somewhere along the route that was a heavy draw. A couple of emails were sent, and four or five additional coaches were added to that weekend’s trains (which still pretty much all sold out).
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We were able to have our own car on the STL-KCY Ride because AU ( Alan B. and Anthony)had connections with Amtrak.( There was a Better Schedule on the River Runners then that allowed a same day turn in KC with more time to eat and site see.)

On the return trip that night we shared a Car with a Hurd of Drunks, er Celebrants, that were attending an Annual Festival @ the State Fairgrounds in Sedalia.

The Conductors were very patient and no-one was removed from the Train! lol
 
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Steve4031 said:
The consists tend to change seasonally. I don’t know the exact numbers for each route but I do know that in the summer they add a sleeping car and at least one coach to the California Zephyr. I assume it’s similar for the chief. The empire builder usually had one Portland sleeper year around. The number of Seattle sleepers varies between 2 and 3 iirc. I suspect there are additional coaches added too. .
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I do know that Crescent 19/20 tends to have an extra coach on weekends during the summer and when big things are going on in NOLA. It departs NYP on Thursday evening.
 
Is there a technical upper limit to how big Amtrak consists can get? How big can the Amtrak train system scale up? What is the limiting factor on how big they can get: locomotive power, or electricity/water, or platform length, or staffing?
 
Trogdor said:
They do vary the consists seasonally. Summer will often have more cars than winter in most of the LD trains.
Click to expand...

I have seen this more with the Superliner consists. I know the Southwest Chief usually loses a sleeper and maybe a coach too from just after New Year's until sometime in the spring when traffic picks up again, and as Steve4031 mentions the same may happen with the Zephyr and maybe the Capitol as well.

With the Viewliner consists, I think one of the selling points of the standardization in the mid-90s was that the same train sets could be pooled for multiple routes without needing to be reconfigured. So, for example, the Lake Shore arriving in New York from Chicago could be sent out as one of the Florida trains the next day. This created a disincentive for seasonally adjusting the consists, because the busy time for Florida travel is a slow season for the Lake Shore, and vice versa.

Also, as I recall, the Viewliner sleepers had a lot of plumbing issues, at least in the early years, so after a couple of days of cold winter weather on the Lake Shore, they would cycle down to Florida to thoroughly thaw out.
 
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One technical limit is NYP track length. I believe it is 14 cars + single loco. Any longer train will foul switches going to other tracks. Believe 14 is just on a few tracks ( 2 or 4 ? ) . Otherwise somewhat less. Now for LSL believe it is less for same reason ? Trains to the south of course could add cars at PHL or WASH. The new HEP capability of Siemens probably will limit trains to 18 - 20 cars.
 
west point said:
One technical limit is NYP track length. I believe it is 14 cars + single loco. Any longer train will foul switches going to other tracks. Believe 14 is just on a few tracks ( 2 or 4 ? ) . Otherwise somewhat less. Now for LSL believe it is less for same reason ? Trains to the south of course could add cars at PHL or WASH. The new HEP capability of Siemens probably will limit trains to 18 - 20 cars.
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Unless I'm mistaken, the Meteor used to be longer than 14 cars (late'80's) and I seem to recall longer trains pulling into Newark heading to or leaving from NYP in the mid 1960's.
 
Bob Dylan said:
We were able to have our own car on the STL-KCY Ride because AU ( Alan B. and Anthony)had connections with Amtrak.
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I'm aware of that. I was one of Anthony's coworkers at the time. I'm also the one that asked the then-head of Amtrak Central Division to add cars to the train.
 
Tom Booth said:
Unless I'm mistaken, the Meteor used to be longer than 14 cars (late'80's) and I seem to recall longer trains pulling into Newark heading to or leaving from NYP in the mid 1960's.
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One of the Silvers swelled at Philadelphia, when through cars from the Broadway Limited were added to the southbound. I'm not sure whether anything similar was done with the then single-level Capitol at WAS. Both Star and Meteor were very long south of there.
 
Matthew H Fish said:
Is there a technical upper limit to how big Amtrak consists can get? How big can the Amtrak train system scale up? What is the limiting factor on how big they can get: locomotive power, or electricity/water, or platform length, or staffing?
Click to expand...

Normally platform length is the limit.
 
Tom Booth said:
Unless I'm mistaken, the Meteor used to be longer than 14 cars (late'80's) and I seem to recall longer trains pulling into Newark heading to or leaving from NYP in the mid 1960's.
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I recall the Florida trains running 18 cars.
In Florida, the STP and Miami sections split. Trains 81/91 and 87/97, and reverse...
One GG-1, and later one E-60 would provide the power from NY to DC...
Still later, a pair of AEM-7’s.
 
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On trains running with HEP that is also limit since the Amtrak norm is HEP provided by one unit. On the other hand, platform length usually precludes trains from being long enough for that factor to apply.
 
Platform length matters more at the terminal stations. At the intermediate stops, a long train can double-stop at a short platform. When the Lake Shore regularly ran with 13-14 cars west of Albany in the late '80s and early '90s, I can remember it double-stopping or even triple-stopping at smaller stations with short platforms, like Bryan OH.
 
The HEP supply is a real issue. P-40s all came with a capacity of 600 Kw. The six assigned to the Auto train all had their capacity rebuilt to 1000 Kw. The early P-42s also had a capacity of 600 Kw. As to any modifications or upgrades for any is not reliably known by this poster. The Siemens SC-42s will have as far as I know 1000 Kw for Amtrak. What the commuter rail units have is unknown. All chargers have the capability to use regenerative braking for HEP with excess regen going to dynamic brake grids.
That is an interesting problem for the design engineers to work out. Hope it does not fail over time ? The ACS-64 Sprinters have dual 1000 Kw inverters that allow for connection to either when there is a failure in one. The Regeneration braking goes directly to the CAT unless the voltage on the CAT is above some value.
 

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