Thanksgiving 2018 Sleeper Buckets

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niemi24s

Engineer
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Feb 11, 2015
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Just completed using AmSnag to check prices for sleepers during the 28 Oct - 26 Nov 2018 period (the farthest out that could be checked today) and noticed an expected increase of several buckets for the 16-22 Nov 2018 period (Thanksgiving is on the 22nd) - but only for about half of the LD trains!

• Trains with a marked increase of several buckets for the period were the SWC, CONO, CARD, LSL (both), CL and SL. Increases for the CS were for the periods 19-21 and 24-26 Nov 2018.

• Trains with no increase or no significant increase for the period were the TE, CZ, EB (both), SS, SM and CRES.

Maybe it's just that the increases haven't been loaded in for the last group of trains? Thanksgiving travelers don't use that last group of trains? Or maybe.......
 
Perhaps this section of an AmSnag search will better illustrate my point than my previous words (11/22/18 is US Thanksgiving):

Thanksgiving 2018 Buckets.jpg

An increase of three buckets for both Roomettes and Bedrooms, starting and ending at precisely the same times, and remaining constant at that second highest bucket level for the seven day period, with seven other trains showing similar sleeper pricing (and seven others with relatively constant lower bucket pricing) doesn't look like a pattern that's driven by customer demand during the last two weeks.

Looks to me like Amtrak set it up this way but for only half its LD routes. My main point was why not the other half?
 
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What city pairs were you checking for the trains showing no increase? With the CZ, check CHI-DEN instead of CHI-SAC or CHI-EMY...the train has load factor issues SLC-RNO, which may be keeping fares suppressed. I remember seeing, on more than one occasion, that CHI-SLC was cheaper than CHI-DEN. Likewise with the Crescent, there's the "Anniston Shuffle" (Amtrak charging far more for WAS/NYP-ATL than for anything beyond). The Builder is a bit harder to explain (I'd check CHI-MSP, though), and the Silvers genuinely surprise me (though I wonder which bucket was being used as the base...there I could see them already being in a higher bucket) though some of that may be down to the Star's *ahem* trouble attracting through traffic (I wonder why that might be the case? Could it have to do with the lack of decent food?) and Amtrak planning to run the Meteor with four sleepers.

@Ryan: He's wondering why there's an expected demand bump on half of the LD trains but not the other half.

Edit: I'll admit, I'm surprised at the date selection...Thanksgiving is higher-bucket while Sunday isn't. Now, that is counter-intuitive, since usually Thanksgiving and the day after are incredibly slow travel days.
 
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He almost always is only checking endpoints.

The Silvers don't surprise me, for precisely the reason you state at the end - they get the capacity increase - more supply yields lower prices relative to trains that don't pick up an extra car.
 
True, and the higher buckets on the Silvers (well, at least on the Meteor) are so high that there's been some speculation that they're causing problems. One other thing which might play into the Silvers and the Crescent's situation would be the expected V-2 delivery schedule. And of course, when I was analyzing the numbers, I recall that the Silvers and the Crescent had close to zero seasonal variation (while the Zephyr and Builder had massive swings in ridership; while you could expect the Meteor, Star, and Crescent's slowest month to be around 80-85% of the average for the year, and the busiest one to be around 115-120%, with the Zephyr in particular that range would run from something like 180% in July to around 50-60% in February). So the Silvers are probably starting a bucket higher overall while Amtrak knows they'll have a half-empty train west of Denver (or Minneapolis).

Edit: Ok, I ran a check and the Silvers are actually in low bucket at that point (though good grief, I remember when low bucket was <$300 from RVR to Florida (I have an old AGR earning record showing $291 ORL-RVR and DLD-RVR for $288)).
 
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Just checked the SWC sleeper rates using AmSnag (thanks Paul) and noticed the three bucket sleeper jump seen in Post #4 has been extended from 11/22/18 to 11/27/18 (the end of the 11 month limit). Maybe the seven other routes with similar jumps have had their jump periods extended too. Others are invited to check.

Gadzooks - does this extension occurring within 24 hours of starting this thread mean some bean counter at Amtrak actually reads this crap? Or maybe they just figured it out themselves.
 
What city pairs were you checking for the trains showing no increase?
For this exercise, only the end points were checked because the check was done primarily to look for any changes or errors in my 4 Nov 2017 edition of the bucket chart. After finding a few (each error less than about $10) the chart was updated and here is the amended one:

26 Dec 17 Fare Buckets.jpg
 
I'm thinking that at least some of the adjustments are manual and some of the tinkering occurred right after Christmas. It is, of course, also possible that part of what was at issue was only part of the job getting done before the end of someone's shift before the weekend. IIRC there is an algorithm, but a few periods like Thanksgiving are probably set up differently because a large amount of the demand is known in advance.
 
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Did some more spot checks and saw that four additional trains (in addition to the previously reported SWC) had their bucket jumps extended up to 5 days to cover a short period following Thanksgiving 2018, but four trains with no or no significant increase remained the same.

Maybe it takes longer to implement these changes than I'd initially thought. Only time will tell if those increases eventually get to other routes.
 
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