West Coast Metroliner (Why Didn't it Work?)

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Donctor

Donctor

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According to a few of my old timetables, there was once a Los Angeles-San Diego Metroliner. When looking through my timetables to gain a better understanding of how this route evolved, I noticed something: it lasted only a year or two. I wondered how this could have happened, so I looked the train up on Everything2.com. According to that website:

For a brief period in the mid 1980s, Amtrak converted one of its San Diegan trains between Los Angeles and San Diego into the San Diegan Metroliner, featuring the same amenities as on the regular Metroliners in the Northeast, such as reserved seating, limited stops, and free snacks.While the Metroliners had proved popular between New York and Washington, for almost 20 years, their introduction on the West Coast was greeted with a noted lack of enthusiasm. Within a year, the Metroliner service was replaced by the introduction of Custom Class on the San Diegans, which made reserved seating available on all trains in addition to the regular unreserved seating.
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This article prompted a few new questions:

1. Did Amtrak decide to call the western service "Metroliner" because the Metroliner cars were already being used there? Or was this something well-planned?

2. Why was this train "greeted with a noted lack of enthusiasm"?

3. Why was Custom Class a better solution than a Metroliner? If the one first-class run of the day wasn't greeted with enthusiasm, why did Amtrak decide to expand first-class service? (I'm not saying this move wasn't for the better.)
 
#1) My guess is that they just figured it would be a known name, since it existed on the NEC.

#2) Twenty years ago trains weren't as popular out west as they are now.

#3) Custom Class is Amtrak's old term for Business Class. Club Class was the term for First Class service. Therefore they didn't expand first class service after it failed. They added business class service, which continues to exist even today.
 
Generally, frequency is preferable over speed, particularly for business passengers - the sort this will have been aimed at. That is, while they were running a faster and more comfortable service, if a passenger, say, finished a meeting at 4:00 and wanted to get home, and found they could leave at 4:15 and arrive home at 5:00, or leave at 4:45 and arrive home at 5:15, they're most likely going to get the 4:15 home, even though the 4:45 is faster and more comfortable, because they'll still get home 15 minutes sooner, and the coach class of the 4:15 will still be more comfortable than the waiting room for half an hour. It stands to reason.

Therefore, if business passengers are willing to pay for comfort, what you want to do is provide as much comfort as you can in separate areas of all of the existing trains, so that they can benefit from both extra comfort and the existing frequency.

The same thing worked on the NEC as it's well used enough to provide a high frequency of both premium and regular trains.
 
Amtking said:
2. Why was this train "greeted with a noted lack of enthusiasm"?
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Aloha

Well if you are riding a train along the beach and you sit to low to see the scenery, It is Just no fun, And you feel better with a Good View :rolleyes: :) .
 
I don't think there was much of a time difference between the Metroliners and the regular trains, so any allure about a "Metroliner" operation was lost.
 
MikefromCrete said:
I don't think there was much of a time difference between the Metroliners and the regular trains, so any allure about a "Metroliner" operation was lost.
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Its the same with the Acelas and NE Regionals. They only make up a little better time than the NE Regionals (some are faster then others, like a Regional that makes all stops along the Boston section and/or between NY-WAS). The West Coast Metroliner used the same equipment (although fancier inside), but ran just a little better times.
 
cpamtfan said:
Its the same with the Acelas and NE Regionals. They only make up a little better time than the NE Regionals (some are faster then others, like a Regional that makes all stops along the Boston section and/or between NY-WAS). The West Coast Metroliner used the same equipment (although fancier inside), but ran just a little better times.
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I bet if a service could be run with Acela-like sets with Acela-like speeds on that corridor it would be quite successful and would command a significantly higher RASM than the current service. Of course the issue is what would the CASM be as usual. :)

For those looking confused .....

RASM = Revenue per Available Seat Mile

CASM = Cost per Available Seat Mile
 
What is the trackage like between Los Angeles and San Diego? Is it double- or multi-tracked for any significant distance? I've seen videos that showed some of it to be single-tracked. Wouldn't a single-track line be very difficult to operate at high speeds, irrespective of the quality of the equipment? Even if trains could be run at 70, 80, even 100 mph (depending on the track conditions and signaling systems), frequency of service would necessarily be constrained by the track capacity.
 
With properly placed double track segments interspersed by single track segments, there should be no difficulty running 4 to 6 tph continuously as long as time keeping is generally good.

Although not high speed, the RiverLINE is able to run 4tph with extensive single track segments. But then it was designed to do so, and also it is almost impossible to run that railroad any way other than on schedule, which explains why it has an on schedule rating of high 90s. When you are forced to do something or else account for what happened you are more likely to do it than when it siust a matter of meeting a sweet aspiration :)
 
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