by rohr turbo
electricron wrote: ↑Thu Sep 28, 2023 11:19 pm ...At the very least, your analysis confirms that the lay-flat pods earn approximately the same revenue per floor area as a coach or roomette. Good!
The only car type a lay flat car out earns is the Amfleet 2 coach.
Why do it if it looses money where you want to use it, on the NEC ?
If you really think that it is financially sensible to *only* offer the 'highest revenue' accommodation, then you are saying Amtrak should immediately scrap all coaches and force everyone into double-occupancy roomettes! Are you seriously advocating this? Of course not. Any business knows to offer a range of products because there are multiple markets to address. Airlines earn most profit on business/first, but they still offer coach. All some of us are saying is that there is a (potentially large) untapped market for a seat that's better than coach, but not as expensive as a private bedroom.
As to more flaws in your analysis:
- you assume high-density day coaches and overnight LD coaches charge the same fare. I doubt it.
- at best you'd get 18 roomettes in a single level car. See Viewliner II. Analyzing half a superliner does not allow for toilets, baggage, attendant etc. which are mostly downstairs.
- I compute you can actually get 36 pods in a Viewliner shell, still leaving room for 2 toilets and 6' wide luggage compartments on both sides. Looking at this UA layout, they get 2 pods on each side of the aisle for every 7.2 linear feet of cabin length. Since Viewliner floor width is a little more than half 787's width, just consider single aisle equivalence. So now, by your formula, my pods at "90" are one of the highest revenue-generating uses of a railcar!
diagram I used for computation: I welcome any corrections to my math.
https://www.flyertalk.com/articles/unit ... acity.html
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