Train/Checked Bags No longer offered to Reno, Nev.

[jccollins]

Amtrak has suspended all checked baggage service availability to Reno, Nevada on the California Zephyr indefinitely due to their inability to use the newly refurbished downtown train station or continue to directly stop the trains at the temporary station.

Passengers are currently being transported on the California Zephyr to the unstaffed Sparks, Nevada station (about five miles away) and shuttled on buses to the temporary Reno station which is still in use. Trains are running through the downtown Reno train trench but are unable to stop at or use the downtown Reno station due to a dispute on the station's lease agreement.

Vito at Amtrak Customer Service, who personally seemed to have extensive knowledge of the details of the arrangement, told me during a telephone conversation earlier this evening that the City of Reno is already in the process of evicting Amtrak from their temporary downtown modular building station. She continued that if Amtrak is successfully evicted before it is able to move operations over to the newly-refurbished station, that the station would become unstaffed and passengers would not have an indoor waiting room to wait for the trains (or rather the shuttle buses over to Sparks to catch the train).

Reno averages 55,000 pax/year on and off trains at the station, and the unstaffed Sparks station averages about 20,000 pax/year on and off the trains. Since the busing began from Reno to Sparks a few weeks ago to catch the train, ticketed ridership to Reno is about 40% of what it was at this time last year. This follows what would have been the strongest ridership year for Reno in Amtrak's history.

 

[puzzled?]

When I rode on the Zephyr about 18 months ago, the train attendant remarked that passengers should not go too far from the train at Reno, adding that "They don't like Amtrak around here". I thought that an odd thing to say at the time, but what exactly are these difficulties with the old/new stations at Reno?

 

[PRR 60]

When Amtrak stopped at the old surface station, the train blocked several major north-south streets in downtown Reno which created traffic and public safety issues and left local residents and city officials less than pleased. For that reason Amtrak tried to limit the stop time in Reno and did not want passengers wandering off to the local attractions.

This traffic issue (far more critical with numerous freight trains than the Amtrak service) is what led the city to construct the “trench”. This $282 million project is a below-grade relocation of the Union Pacific tracks that eliminated all the downtown grade crossings. The project was funded by the City of Reno. Part of that project was the renovation and expansion of the old Southern Pacific train station for use by Amtrak.

The present dispute revolves around the new station and the operating costs. The station is at grade and the trains are 30 feet below grade so both escalators and an elevator were installed by the city for access between the station and the platform. The city wants Amtrak to lease the station for about $2000 per month to defer the operating and maintenance costs including the escalator and elevator. Amtrak wants to pay nothing. Therein lays the conflict. Until an agreement is reached between the city and Amtrak, the new station will sit idle and Amtrak will use the bare-bones Sparks station located east of town.

For the record, Amtrak’s total passenger count at Reno (passengers on and off) was just under 60,000 in fiscal 2004.

 

[caravanman]

That is a good, comprehensive answer! I find it hard to imagine that a modest rent of $2000 per month would go far towards the cost of the new station, elevators, and escalators. I can't believe that the cost of bussing passengers would be less than $2000 per month either? New user friendly stations are the gateway to the trains, and better stations should lead to more passengers. What is the status of most other stations, are they provided as an amenity by the local towns, or owned by Amtrak?

Ed B)

 

[Allen Dee]

Of course it costs more than $2000 per month to bus all of those passengers between Reno and Sparks.

The folks at Uncle Pete and Amtrak need to work this out ASAP with the folks of the Reno city government.

A stalemate like this makes all parties look stupid.