It’s Time We Stood Up to Amtrak

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John Bredin said:
Did we get 40 more Congressmen? 
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Well, we all know how a certain person in DC likes to exaggerate.
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jis said:
I would also like to see easing up on the seeming requirement that all overnight trains must have Sleepers. I think that unwritten thing prevents the consideration of several possible trains which would probably do fine even as an LD Coach and Cafe train, at least allowing getting the foot in the door on those route, or perhaps a second frequency on part of a route.
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What about the Night Owl? Doesn't that run overnight coach only?

Let's get some overnight coach only trains going, especially you know what...
 
On the subject of all overnight trains having a sleeper. I believe that this is a benefit not a detriment. There are passengers who insist on a sleeper to make the trip and they account for a higher percentage of revenue per passenger than those in coach. 

As for getting the full dining service back; this cannot happen without a new budget/law from congress. Do we have a pro-Amtrak congress?   IMO to meet the "break even" requirement set by Dec 4th, 2020 , all LD dining car personnel would need to be laid off and boxed meals instituted on every route..  IMO long distance service will be devastated not to mention the employees caught up in this who are just trying to make an honest living. Amtrak leadership has no desire to increase ridership and will not speak out for expansion of the service nor for improving existing service so where do we go from here? How do we stand up to Amtrak? .
 
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dlagrua said:
On the subject of all overnight trains having a sleeper. I believe that this is a benefit not a detriment. There are passengers who insist on a sleeper to make the trip and they account for a higher percentage of revenue per passenger than those in coach. 
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But I don't want it to be we can't not start a new overnight train because we have no available sleepers when we have available coaches and can start it using those. Just because some passengers won't ride overnight in coach shouldn't deprive others the chance to do so.
 
Once the CAF order actually goes into service, we have enough sleepers to tack one sleeper on each single-level overnight train just to test the market size. (Starting with 66/67. I just found an article saying that 66/67 had 62% sleeper occupancy back in 2002, which was good: it would be higher now.)
 
We also need a more coherent and expansive plan for Amtrak more than just making the Cardinal and Sunset Limited daily trains and restoring train service between Jacksonville and New Orleans. We need a plan that treats rail like the highways. But it seems like that is a step to far for those that think rail is a state issue.
 

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