Lynchburg VA NE Regional (ext. to Roanoke and Bristol)

Well, unfortunately, they haven't figured out how to present the finance issue that we had a little discussion of above, as shown in a column in today's Roanoke Times:

http://blogs.roanoke.com/dancasey/2011/ ... s-look-up/

To sum up the discussion that had gone on here, I had complained that it seemed crazy to start a bus that would only generate $17,000 in revenue for it's costs of $340,000. Someone replied and said I wasn't getting the full picture - that the bus fare is a "loss leader" but that the riders would then be paying a $50 or more fare on the train from Lynchburg.

Which is a great point - but only if advocates, and in particular, Amtrak spokespeople, completely understand the issue and then make the point. Either that didnt' happen at all, or they were inarticulate in doing so, because the guy from the Roanoke Times didn't get it. Here's the relevant quote - ill-informed, but very understandable:

>Excluding NRV riders, the study estimated total revenues at $4 per ride would be $17,600, and the total costs would be $342,140. That wide gap is why the Roanoke Tea Party has labeled the service “a boondoggle.

>It’s important to keep in mind the shuttle’s longer-term goal. That is helping Amtrak and Virginia gauge the worthiness of extending passenger train service to Roanoke. It’s been more than 30 years since we’ve seen that.

But that's just not it - it's not important to keep in mind the long-term goal -- it's important to keep in mind that in the short term, the deficit to Amtrak won't be anything near 95% of costs. The revenues Amtrak is expecting to gain from this service (from bus fares and from new rider train fares) are something like 12-15 times the number given there.

Sigh.

no misunderstanding arises faster than amongst those who dont wish to understand . nothing irritates me more than media fronts people or publishers , who allow a debator to carry on spouting a fiqure or "fact " , after it has been shown to be false , or misleading .
It also amazes me that "loss leader " is a term every supermarket and probably most retail shops are very familiar with , yet apply it to something like public transport and it is some crazy idea or boondoggle .

David Benton wrote:no misunderstanding arises faster than amongst those who dont wish to understand . nothing irritates me more than media fronts people or publishers , who allow a debator to carry on spouting a fiqure or "fact " , after it has been shown to be false , or misleading .
It also amazes me that "loss leader " is a term every supermarket and probably most retail shops are very familiar with , yet apply it to something like public transport and it is some crazy idea or boondoggle .

To be fair, in a supermarket, they still ultimately make a profit after they sell their loss-leader. Amtrak doesn't.

Honestly, this does sound a bit more like, "we lose money on every passenger, but we will make it up in volume" But they never will make it up.

That said, the $17,600 number sounds awfully low. That averages (assuming I did my math right) 6 people each way each day. At that point, get a shuttle van.

I'd honestly be surprised if the numbers were THAT low.

Greg Moore wrote: To be fair, in a supermarket, they still ultimately make a profit after they sell their loss-leader. Amtrak doesn't.
Honestly, this does sound a bit more like, "we lose money on every passenger, but we will make it up in volume" But they never will make it up.
That said, the $17,600 number sounds awfully low. That averages (assuming I did my math right) 6 people each way each day. At that point, get a shuttle van.
I'd honestly be surprised if the numbers were THAT low.

Please read back to this post http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.ph ... 72#p887635

But rather than like a supermarket loss-leader, this is more like another connecting spoke at a hub. Those, too, lose money segment-wise (local traffic) but generate enough in total ticket fares (including riding on a seat elsewhere in the system) to be profitable.

Also, as discussed above, todays rail portion of Virginia service is actually returning its costs + a profit because it is putting people in otherwise-empty NEC seats and getting a good through-fare price for it.

Arlington wrote:

Greg Moore wrote: To be fair, in a supermarket, they still ultimately make a profit after they sell their loss-leader. Amtrak doesn't.
Honestly, this does sound a bit more like, "we lose money on every passenger, but we will make it up in volume" But they never will make it up.
That said, the $17,600 number sounds awfully low. That averages (assuming I did my math right) 6 people each way each day. At that point, get a shuttle van.
I'd honestly be surprised if the numbers were THAT low.

Please read back to this post http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.ph ... 72#p887635

But rather than like a supermarket loss-leader, this is more like another connecting spoke at a hub. Those, too, lose money segment-wise (local traffic) but generate enough in total ticket fares (including riding on a seat elsewhere in the system) to be profitable.

Also, as discussed above, todays rail portion of Virginia service is actually returning its costs + a profit because it is putting people in otherwise-empty NEC seats and getting a good through-fare price for it.

Amusingly, in your two posts - first complaining about the media, but then explaining something that someone didn't get when they read your first post - you've shown exactly the problem. It's a somewhat complex concept that has to be explained quite well by someone who has thought through how to explain it. You don't have that responsibility - you and I are just posters in an on-line forum. But Amtrak spokespeople do have that responsibility, and they didnt' see the chance for confusion, and so they didn't explain it well.

This is not the media's fault. Criticizing the media is usually misguided - a hollow excuse for the mistakes of the people who should have communicated thing better. The Roanoke Times reporter isn't intentionally skewing something against Amtrak. Nor is Greg Moore intentionally misunderstanding your post - he's an Amtrak friend -- that's why he posts here! His post shows that without a perfect explanation, it's quite easy to misunderstand the situation, even if you're predisposed to like Amtrak. Amtrak needs to recognize the "inviting hazard" and come up with detailed explanations and a patient approach so that this mistake can't be made. They didn't do that.

ryanch wrote:This is not the media's fault. Criticizing the media is usually misguided - a hollow excuse for the mistakes of the people who should have communicated thing better. The Roanoke Times reporter isn't intentionally skewing something against Amtrak. Nor is Greg Moore intentionally misunderstanding your post - he's an Amtrak friend -- that's why he posts here! His post shows that without a perfect explanation, it's quite easy to misunderstand the situation, even if you're predisposed to like Amtrak. Amtrak needs to recognize the "inviting hazard" and come up with detailed explanations and a patient approach so that this mistake can't be made. They didn't do that.

Which means to me that Amtrak as a corporation really doesn't care how people view it. They've given up by not hiring spokespeople who really care. That usually means there's something awfully wrong with its core corporation culture.

Arlington wrote:

Greg Moore wrote: To be fair, in a supermarket, they still ultimately make a profit after they sell their loss-leader. Amtrak doesn't.
Honestly, this does sound a bit more like, "we lose money on every passenger, but we will make it up in volume" But they never will make it up.
That said, the $17,600 number sounds awfully low. That averages (assuming I did my math right) 6 people each way each day. At that point, get a shuttle van.
I'd honestly be surprised if the numbers were THAT low.

Please read back to this post http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.ph ... 72#p887635

But rather than like a supermarket loss-leader, this is more like another connecting spoke at a hub. Those, too, lose money segment-wise (local traffic) but generate enough in total ticket fares (including riding on a seat elsewhere in the system) to be profitable.

Also, as discussed above, todays rail portion of Virginia service is actually returning its costs + a profit because it is putting people in otherwise-empty NEC seats and getting a good through-fare price for it.

Yes, Virginia is unusual in that aspect, but again, my point stands. Loss-leaders only work as a loss-leader when your system as a whole MAKES A PROFIT, which Amtrak fails to do.

And in this specific case even, adding the 12 riders average a day on the rail portion, does NOT make up the loss of the bus portion.

Don't get me wrong. I'm in favor of this new service. I think a broader, larger network is essential to the success of a transportation system such as Amtrak.

It makes sense from a traffic density POV, fuel savings, etc. But trying to describe this as a "loss-leader" is disingenuous at best and deceptive at worst. I think you hurt the argument more than you help it by trying to describe it as such.

And as I stated, I seriously suspect the revenue of $17,600 is much lower than what will really happen. There's clearly the demand there.

I think that this Lynchburg - Roanoke bus service may be a way of finding out how many riders that extending rail service is likely to get.

Amtrak runs lots of Ambuses, and some Ambus lines have eventually gotten rail service, like San Joaquin Stockton - Sacramento. So I would not want to be too pessimistic about that Ambus proposal.

Roanoke is not the only destination that could be served by a bus connection to the Lynchburg train. I had to go to Lexington, VA for work a while back, driving being the only real option (I think there may be one "off-brand" bus that stops in Lexington on the way to and from DC). It was a nice enough drive for me since I avoided I-81. Most people, though, would do the 66 to 81 route, which is really unpleasant. I would think there could be a market for a bus connection that ran, say, Charlottesville-Waynesboro-Lexington. Even a Lexington-Lynchburg connection might be preferable to all the 18 wheelers on 81. Lexington has two (albeit small) colleges which could generate traffic (although I don't know how much traveling the cadets at VMI are allowed to do). MIght be another possibility, and another small step down the route of intermodal connectivity. (And, having driven it, no you wouldn't want to run a bus due east from Lexington on US 60 to a hypothetical station at, oh, Amherst.)

http://www.collegiatetimes.com/stories/ ... gain-steam

Since a Lynchburg Amtrak station connecting the region to Washington D.C. and the northeast corridor opened in October 2009, it has tripled estimates on the number of expected riders. Drake said it is the most successful state-sponsored Amtrak line in the country.

Drake, a former congresswoman from the Hampton Roads area, said service could eventually reach Roanoke, Bristol and beyond as expansions of the currently operating Lynchburg line.

Discussion tweeted @railroadnet

The Roanoke bus is almost reality: http://www.roanoke.com/news/breaking/wb/291245:

A new bus service connecting the Roanoke and New River valleys to Lynchburg’s Amtrak station will start July 19, making it easier to catch a train to Washington, D.C., and beyond.
............
The shuttle bus, which seats 16, will make two daily runs from the Roanoke Civic Center, where parking is free, to Lynchburg with a stop at Bedford’s welcome center.

when you look at the timetable , its not that fast , imagine how well a reasonably fast train would do on a route like this .

The shuttle bus, which seats 16, will make two daily runs from the Roanoke Civic Center, where parking is free, to Lynchburg with a stop at Bedford’s welcome center.

Creators of the new service expanded the service on Fridays and weekends to carry passengers from Virginia Tech, Christiansburg and Salem.

Seats 16?

I hope they have a backup plan. 16 seats won't be sufficient for Labor Day weekend (or most other weekends when college is in session). What will they do on the weekend of October 22nd when BC plays VT?

jstolberg wrote:

The shuttle bus, which seats 16, will make two daily runs from the Roanoke Civic Center, where parking is free, to Lynchburg with a stop at Bedford’s welcome center.

Creators of the new service expanded the service on Fridays and weekends to carry passengers from Virginia Tech, Christiansburg and Salem.

Seats 16?

I hope they have a backup plan. 16 seats won't be sufficient for Labor Day weekend (or most other weekends when college is in session). What will they do on the weekend of October 22nd when BC plays VT?

On most days, 16 should be plenty. If/when they see it selling out they can either ask the bus company to swap in a bigger bus or they'll add another.

David Benton wrote:when you look at the timetable , its not that fast , imagine how well a reasonably fast train would do on a route like this .

Mostly because the line north of Manassas is basically 50mph all the way to Alexandria...from ALX to Washington on CSX its not much better. South of Manassas is almost completely straight, 79mph MAS....