Hampton Roads/Norfolk/Newport News NE Regional Service

Ladies and gents, it is now 7:06 am EST. Train #174 departed this morning from Norfolk at 4:55 am. For the second time this year, Amtrak has added new mileage to its system.

A great collection of media is available here: http://hamptonroads.com/2012/12/ceremon ... es-norfolk

The EGE wrote:Ladies and gents, it is now 7:06 am EST. Train #174 departed this morning from Norfolk at 4:55 am. For the second time this year, Amtrak has added new mileage to its system.

And as of 8:41am it is arriving at Quantico 9 mins late, but expected at ALX 1 minute late (says online train status). They'll probably work pretty hard to have it be punctual at WAS [EDIT] ...and indeed they were 5 minutes early into DC on the inaugural trip. Congratulations![/EDIT]

Nice "first revenue trip" photos and more must-read (and must watch embedded video) coverage from PilotOnline.com / HamptonRoads.com covering a trip from Norfolk to Washington and back on the first day of service

(1) I would appreciate if someone could post some photos of the Amtrak storage & servicing facility for NFK. I have heard that it is located along St. Julian Avenue east of Maltby Avenue.

(2) How/where does the trainset, which arrives and unloads at NFK in the evening, get turned to properly position it for departure the next morning? Using Google Maps, I see some wye track configurations on the south side of the Elizabeth River, but I do not see one on the north side of the Elizabeth River anywhere close to the passenger station.

jhdeasy wrote:(1) I would appreciate if someone could post some photos of the Amtrak storage & servicing facility for NFK. I have heard that it is located along St. Julian Avenue east of Maltby Avenue.

(2) How/where does the trainset, which arrives and unloads at NFK in the evening, get turned to properly position it for departure the next morning? Using Google Maps, I see some wye track configurations on the south side of the Elizabeth River, but I do not see one on the north side of the Elizabeth River anywhere close to the passenger station.

Sorry, no pictures, but this article says that the wye was constructed in the St Julian area (presumably by connecting the diverging tracks with a connector parallel to St Julian St itself.
http://hamptonroads.com/2012/04/neighbo ... nstruction
Heres a map where you can see the wye-readiness of the St Julian area:
http://goo.gl/maps/UwNFi

Does anyone have the consist of the inaugural #174?
What train did the Beech Grove and two private cars from the special go back on?

Andy

twropr wrote:Does anyone have the consist of the inaugural #174?
What train did the Beech Grove and two private cars from the special go back on?
Andy

Didn't the special consist come south the day before and simply go back north as the inaugural train?

But while, we're at it, anyone have a sense of ridership vs expectations?

Sadly, Hampton Roads doesn't have the density of railfans per square mile that the Downeaster and Lackawanna Cutoff have

Today and tomorrow 174 is the only train from Philadelphia and New York that's currently sold out.

That didn't take long.

jstolberg wrote:Today and tomorrow 174 is the only train from Philadelphia and New York that's currently sold out.

That didn't take long.

WOW! Pretty impressive. Amsnag indicates the rest of the week is sold pretty heavily as well with most fares showing in the highest bucket.

I read somewhere about how many military and government would likely want to use the train to travel to Washington, D.C. for the day. I would emphasize here the way government travel works if the train is cheaper than airfare (or mileage payment for travel by privately owned vehicle) the system incentivizes local travel managers to take advantage of this. In this case that means the train could sell out even the highest fare buckets due to the cost savings compared to airfare or mileage.

gokeefe wrote:

jstolberg wrote:Today and tomorrow 174 is the only train from Philadelphia and New York that's currently sold out.

That didn't take long.

WOW! Pretty impressive. Amsnag indicates the rest of the week is sold pretty heavily as well with most fares showing in the highest bucket.

I read somewhere about how many military and government would likely want to use the train to travel to Washington, D.C. for the day. I would emphasize here the way government travel works if the train is cheaper than airfare (or mileage payment for travel by privately owned vehicle) the system incentivizes local travel managers to take advantage of this. In this case that means the train could sell out even the highest fare buckets due to the cost savings compared to airfare or mileage.

How much can we credit the extension to Norfolk for this? Didn't this train use to sell out before?

electricron wrote:

gokeefe wrote:

jstolberg wrote:Today and tomorrow 174 is the only train from Philadelphia and New York that's currently sold out.
That didn't take long.

WOW! Pretty impressive. Amsnag indicates the rest of the week is sold pretty heavily as well with most fares showing in the highest bucket.

How much can we credit the extension to Norfolk for this? Didn't this train use to sell out before?

I think that's the right question to ask. This is a fun season for railfans who like full trains, but a single sellout in a peak travel week may be evidence that they underpriced tix (and didn't need that $19 sale, for example) rather than the extension is a winner (I'm just suggesting we wait for more evidence, not that it isn't a winner)

The old rule for yield managers was you'd like to have exactly one seat available at some outrageously high price right up until the last minute to know that you hadn't underpriced and sold out too easily (nor overpriced and left more than one seat empty).

I'd be more interested to know how bookings look Jan 6 thru 9th (Southwest pulls out of ORF-LGA on Jan 5th), after the Holiday travel ends, where the train will have a better competitive position on Hampton Roads-NYC.

electricron wrote:

gokeefe wrote:

jstolberg wrote:Today and tomorrow 174 is the only train from Philadelphia and New York that's currently sold out.
That didn't take long.

WOW! Pretty impressive. Amsnag indicates the rest of the week is sold pretty heavily as well with most fares showing in the highest bucket.

How much can we credit the extension to Norfolk for this? Didn't this train use to sell out before?

Maybe it did, but at the time it only ran to Richmond. The Amsnag pairing I looked up was NFK - NYP. I just checked NFK - WAS and that's pretty heavily sold and is showing high(er) fares over the next two or three days.

Arlington wrote:I think that's the right question to ask. This is a fun season for railfans who like full trains, but a single sellout in a peak travel week may be evidence that they underpriced tix (and didn't need that $19 sale, for example) rather than the extension is a winner (I'm just suggesting we wait for more evidence, not that it isn't a winner)

No doubt this is definitely a heavy travel period for Amtrak with early February and late January being the very low end of the year but I think the point being made was suddenly this train sold out on a day when nothing else was.

Arlington wrote:I'd be more interested to know how bookings look Jan 6 thru 9th (Southwest pulls out of ORF-LGA on Jan 5th), after the Holiday travel ends, where the train will have a better competitive position on Hampton Roads-NYC.

At $128 one-way on Sunday, January 6th #88 appears to be in one of the highest if not the very highest fare buckets already for NFK-NYP. Travel peak is early in the week with THU/FRI currently showing fares available at $63 one-way for #174. Even Sunday, January 13th which is more clearly post "holiday peak" #88 is showing $90 one way fares right now with over two weeks to go. Pretty strong stuff.

Beyond that with the exception of Monday, January 14th which is also at $90 one way, the fare curve is essentially flat. There are some peaks for the Bus connector to Newport News (NPN) which leads me to believe that people who have made plans very far in advance may have booked prior to NFK being available. There is one anomalous date, January 24 on which #174 is currently showing $154 one-way. Curiously Inauguration Weekend on January 19th and 20th is showing very low patronage. That could change in a hurry, especially if people start getting the impression that the crowds won't be as bad as 2008.

electricron wrote:

gokeefe wrote:

jstolberg wrote:Today and tomorrow 174 is the only train from Philadelphia and New York that's currently sold out.

That didn't take long.

WOW! Pretty impressive. Amsnag indicates the rest of the week is sold pretty heavily as well with most fares showing in the highest bucket.

I read somewhere about how many military and government would likely want to use the train to travel to Washington, D.C. for the day. I would emphasize here the way government travel works if the train is cheaper than airfare (or mileage payment for travel by privately owned vehicle) the system incentivizes local travel managers to take advantage of this. In this case that means the train could sell out even the highest fare buckets due to the cost savings compared to airfare or mileage.

How much can we credit the extension to Norfolk for this? Didn't this train use to sell out before?

You hit the nail on the head, Electricron. The extension had minimal impact between WAS-BOS.

gokeefe wrote:

jstolberg wrote:Today and tomorrow 174 is the only train from Philadelphia and New York that's currently sold out.

That didn't take long.

WOW! Pretty impressive. Amsnag indicates the rest of the week is sold pretty heavily as well with most fares showing in the highest bucket.

I read somewhere about how many military and government would likely want to use the train to travel to Washington, D.C. for the day. I would emphasize here the way government travel works if the train is cheaper than airfare (or mileage payment for travel by privately owned vehicle) the system incentivizes local travel managers to take advantage of this. In this case that means the train could sell out even the highest fare buckets due to the cost savings compared to airfare or mileage.

Two stories about military travel via Amtrak:

Many of you know I rode the barely-former Southern Crescent 4/79 from NWR to Anniston AL to go to basic.

However, much later in my career, I was a reservist at Fort Meade, and living in Stamford. Military Travel would ALWAYS book me from JFK to BWI, no matter the cost. It was like pulling teeth to get a corridor train from STD to BWI, which was ALWAYS cheaper.

Recently, there was a proposal for a troop train to go from Fort Lee to Fort AP Hill. It would have been operated by Amtrak as a charter. Apparently, the cost was too much.

Crazy stuff.

The fact that the military booked air shuttles of such short distance is silly in the first place. There should be some sort of protocol about transportation under a certain distance never being air, always being rail or bus. A lot of people outside the Northeast (including perhaps people who set up the travel system) do not get how close everything is here. Living in Northern New Jersey, I would never fly for anything shorter than EWR-Chicago or EWR-Charlotte. Northeastern air shuttles strike my as inefficient, environmentally unfriendly, and by all accounts are not exactly huge profit centers for the airlines, since they are expensive to operate. More airlines besides United should have codeshares with Amtrak. Anyone flying into Dulles (soon), DCA, BWI, PHL, EWR, JFK, PVD, or BOS has easy enough connections with Amtrak through a rapid transit link. EWR and BWI additionally have intercity trains stopping directly at the airport. It is a no-brainer for airlines to book LAX-PVD via EWR or something similar with Amtrak as the connection.