The decline of sleeper trains

electricron wrote: ↑Wed Jan 10, 2024 1:56 am You missed turning two trains into one train, then turning the one train into two trains effectively created four trains.

Think of a train from Washington or Virginia and a train from Pittsburgh combining at PHL 30 Street. At New Haven
the trains split with one on the Inland Route.

During the war (1945 Official Guide) and possible sometime after, there was a through Boston-Pittsburgh joint PRR-NH service via Hell Gate ((trains 186 New Englander and 195/183 Iron City Express) with sleepers, diner and coaches, both leaving from their terminal cities at 4 PM, arriving 7:45 AM.

RandallW wrote: ↑Wed Jan 10, 2024 4:58 pm That depends entirely upon price. If its cheaper or roughly the same cost to use an overnight sleeper then as it is to take a bus/car/plane/train and pay for a hotel for one night, more people would be choosing the sleeper train since it provides an extra day at the origin or destination.

No, it doesn't depend entirely on price.....

Option 1: Fly to meeting city, have multiple options for a decent dinner or room service, take a shower, and sleep on a king size bed

Option 2: Take the train, eat AmFood, sleep on essentially a board with a foam pad, and hope that the washcloth-bath you take in the lavatory will be enough to be passable

I know what 99.5% of all business travelers will be picking...

eolesen wrote: ↑Wed Jan 10, 2024 11:56 pm

RandallW wrote: ↑Wed Jan 10, 2024 4:58 pm That depends entirely upon price. If its cheaper or roughly the same cost to use an overnight sleeper then as it is to take a bus/car/plane/train and pay for a hotel for one night, more people would be choosing the sleeper train since it provides an extra day at the origin or destination.

No, it doesn't depend entirely on price.....

Option 1: Fly to meeting city, have multiple options for a decent dinner or room service, take a shower, and sleep on a king size bed

Option 2: Take the train, eat AmFood, sleep on essentially a board with a foam pad, and hope that the washcloth-bath you take in the lavatory will be enough to be passable

I know what 99.5% of all business travelers will be picking...

Hold on there... you're missing the point. Let me expand that:

Option 1: Take an entire half a day to a day traveling. Yes, you're eating decent food but you're stuck not being able to work effectively during your travels, there's a big risk of a security breach at your company should others look over your shoulder (so you really CAN'T work)... and you got to spend at least 3 hours waiting for ether your flight or your luggage, not including travel to the airport. Oh, don't forget TSA. And their dogs. You know, the ones that want to sniff your butt for whatever reason.

Option 2: Take the train, eat Amtrak catered food, sleep on a double-foam bed while the train rocks you to sleep, wake up, take a shower, eat Amtrak breakfast, get off and look for another cup of coffee. You're not "fresh" but you're at least presentable. You still have travel to the stations to deal with.

Option 3 (NightJet/Japan Railways style): Take the train after dinner. Snooze on a decent bed while the train rocks you to sleep. Get a quick shower because you only get so many minutes of water. Get off the train and get breakfast. You're better than option 3. This only works on 8-10 hour overnight trips! You still have travel to the stations to deal with.

RandallW wrote: ↑Wed Jan 10, 2024 7:24 pm Amtrak did run trains like that--when the Capitol Limited andSilver Star were heritage fleet trains, the Silver Star had a Miami section and a Tampa (or St Petersburg) section that merged in Jacksonville and then dropped cars in Washington that went to Chicago while the Silver Star continued onto New York. On top of that, the Capitol Limited combined with the Broadway Limited from Pittsburgh to Chicago.

Amtrak still does this on some routes. Both the Lake Shore Limited and the Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle split and combine trains. I think the Empire Builder does it, too. And it wasn't that long ago that some trains split or joined at New Haven for inland vs shore line branching. Regardless, I don't see that as an obstacle, though it also might not be a necessity for the types of routes we are discussing. An 8-10 hour overnight route is something I'd consider with the right kind of amenities. I've done that a few times in Europe and found it to be a great approach.

HenryAlan wrote: ↑Thu Jan 11, 2024 11:06 am . An 8-10 hour overnight route is something I'd consider with the right kind of amenities. I've done that a few times in Europe and found it to be a great approach.

In the USA, with trains averaging speeds less than 50 mph over 8-10 hours, you could drive your car on a wide 4-6 lanes Interstate Highway in 5-6 hours. In Texas with 75 to 80 mph speed limits, with the usual 5 mph speed allowance before getting a speeding ticket, in 4-5 hours.
People from Europe believe driving 4-6 hours as a chore, but drivers in the USA will drive 8-10-12 hours without a fuss. I have driven non-stop from Orlando to Dallas in less than 18 hours. Now, that was a long drive but I did have a co-driver driving half the time as we swapped out at each gas stop.
By Amtrak train, today you would have to ride a Star train to Raleigh, swap over to either Piedmont or Carolinian train to Charolette, swap over to the Crescent train to New Orleans, swap over to the Sunset Limited to San Antonio, nd finally swap over to the Texas Eagle to Dallas. That's days by train vs less than a day by car.

Sounds like such a train isn't for you, which is fine. But this is a big country, there might well be plenty of people who would rather sleep through a slightly longer trip, then have to stay vigilant for 5-6 hours of driving. Why are you trying to argue against a service that others might well like to use, just because it doesn't suit you? Are you harmed in some way by the existence of alternative options that you aren't required to select? It doesn't require a majority of trips, or even more than a tiny minority of trips taken for such a service to be viable.

and remember
In a big country,
dreams stay with you
like a lovers voice on a mountainside.

RandallW wrote: ↑Thu Jan 11, 2024 4:18 am If #1 is more expensive than #2, the companies wouldn't allow the option of #1 without some other non-price justification. It's that simple--business travel is generally in the back in the plane unless the traveller has flown enough with that airline to have status or the person is paying out of pocket. And travel is the first cost to tighten controls on when a company is struggling to control its costs.

When I worked with Raytheon, I lived a $15 cab ride from Dulles and ~$100 cab ride from BWI, but I needed approval from a VP level to fly out of Dulles instead of Baltimore every time a flight out of BWI would be $50 less than an "equivalent" flight out of Dulles because the travel system wasn't designed to consider the cost of a taxi to the airport.

Well... I can't explain Raytheon's logic or your experience, but I'd say you are largely incorrect at the macro level...

I used to do sales engineering for one of the larger travel companies, including the booking/authorization engines sold to corporate travel agencies like Amex, BCD, Hogg-Robinson, Carlson, and large corporates who still choose to have in-house travel bureaus.

A $50 difference alone should never cause a rejection. The baseline we suggested was in the ballpark of a 20% differential between the lowest non-basic economy fare to get flagged for a higher authorization.

As someone who used to travel six months out of the year, I routinely booked whatever airline I wanted out of whatever airport, and only had to go seek a higher level of authority twice. Once was because the airline I was going to meet with was priced 30% higher than their competitor. It's bad form to walk into a meeting with Delta and tell them you flew Frontier or Spirit when they ask how your Delta flight was...

The other time it was because I was traveling with someone who didn't need approval...

Trying to argue that the time spent in transit isn't meaningful for corporate travel is almost as easy as trying to convince my insurance company that using a fax machine for claim correspondence is more efficient than taking a photo with your smartphone and uploading it into their claims app...

HenryAlan wrote: ↑Fri Jan 12, 2024 8:05 amBut this is a big country, there might well be plenty of people who would rather sleep through a slightly longer trip, then have to stay vigilant for 5-6 hours of driving. Why are you trying to argue against a service that others might well like to use, just because it doesn't suit you?

When is the United States Department of Transportation, in the interest of equity across all Americans regardless of their access to one mode of transport or another, going to open up the "Agency for Highway Accomodations", and start a hotel chain called "AmHotel", where long distance travellers on our Nation's highway system are entitled to hotel accomodations, dinner and breakfast ALWAYS included (and not just a pastry table, but a hot, made to order breakfast!), at a cost to the traveller that is only 50% of the operating cost (the remainder to be funded by the United States General Fund) as long as they are travelling over eight hours one way?

Surely, the public interest in having rested, nourished motorists on our highway system means safer roads, fewer fatalities...surely, Amtrak's supporters should not just be 100% for this - THEY SHOULD BE DEMANDING IT. And think about how many jobs it would create - GOOD jobs, UNION jobs, FULL TIME jobs, with federal benefits including sick time and vacation, and fully funded healthcare benefits. In EVERY STATE in America (maybe not Hawaii, but they'll get an equivalent program to make sure they get equitable service), Red or Blue. Rural AND urban America alike. Literally every town of consequence will have an AmHotel - what could possibly be better for creating American Jobs for America, besides the Postal Service? (Maybe we can find some synergies...locate Post Offices within the AmHotels?)

wigwagfan wrote: ↑Tue Mar 19, 2024 12:28 am

HenryAlan wrote: ↑Fri Jan 12, 2024 8:05 amBut this is a big country, there might well be plenty of people who would rather sleep through a slightly longer trip, then have to stay vigilant for 5-6 hours of driving. Why are you trying to argue against a service that others might well like to use, just because it doesn't suit you?

When is the United States Department of Transportation, in the interest of equity across all Americans regardless of their access to one mode of transport or another, going to open up the "Agency for Highway Accomodations", and start a hotel chain called "AmHotel", where long distance travellers on our Nation's highway system are entitled to hotel accomodations, dinner and breakfast ALWAYS included (and not just a pastry table, but a hot, made to order breakfast!), at a cost to the traveller that is only 50% of the operating cost (the remainder to be funded by the United States General Fund) as long as they are travelling over eight hours one way?

Surely, the public interest in having rested, nourished motorists on our highway system means safer roads, fewer fatalities...surely, Amtrak's supporters should not just be 100% for this - THEY SHOULD BE DEMANDING IT. And think about how many jobs it would create - GOOD jobs, UNION jobs, FULL TIME jobs, with federal benefits including sick time and vacation, and fully funded healthcare benefits. In EVERY STATE in America (maybe not Hawaii, but they'll get an equivalent program to make sure they get equitable service), Red or Blue. Rural AND urban America alike. Literally every town of consequence will have an AmHotel - what could possibly be better for creating American Jobs for America, besides the Postal Service? (Maybe we can find some synergies...locate Post Offices within the AmHotels?)

...and somehow I'm getting the American flag flown in the background and eagles crying and...

But besides all that, some hotels have FedEx Offices and/or Post Office outlets in or attached to them (Hyatt Regency O'Hare Chicago for the former, Westin Pittsburgh for the latter). Sadly, they ether don't have good hours conductive for a TON of business (Post Office would enjoy a 6pm-10pm Sunday window during convention weekends so folks could mail goodies and/or unsold merch to themselves) or shut down (FedEx Office in the Hyatt above shut down during a convention weekend to the dismay of many who could use printing/lamination services, plus shipping services).

*sigh* Oh the days of the mail car...

[quote=RandallW
[/quote]

That depends entirely upon price. If its cheaper or roughly the same cost to use an overnight sleeper then as it is to take a bus/car/plane/train and pay for a hotel for one night, more people would be choosing the sleeper train since it provides an extra day at the origin or destination.
[/quote] Years agoI used to take the train from Northern NJ to and from Washington, DC for business meetings monthly or so. Most of the other attendees flew, including from NNJ or NY City area. When I asked them why not take the Metroliner, they said "i can use use frequent flyer miles for vacation travel. When I mentioned that Amtrak had a similar rewards program they replied. "if leave home in the morning and fly toFlorida I can spend the afternoon and evening on the beach. Why would I travel on a train all day and night instead", or "only planes travel to the Carribean and Europe. "