Why does the Auto-Train Service Approach being Profitable?

sully wrote:

I vote they raise prices.

In FY 2016 the loss was $4.3 million. They hauled about 238,400 cars. They charge $202 per car, so that would be about $4.2 million per year. To get a car hauled on freight or truck from Lorton to Sanford is about $600 and up. (I cheked the prices) If they raised the price per car by 10% they would break even!

If all they need to do is increase the per car rate by $20 to achieve break even, why haven't they done it already? That's less than airlines charge for one checked bag.

It seems odd that their only competition is "custom" car hauling, which requires a manual "quote". In the Age of the Internets it is much nicer to go to Amtrak's website and you can find the price right away. Who wants to wait for an email or a callback?

Other than raising prices, they could run the train faster or reduce the labor costs (longer train with same number of employees or same length with fewer employees). Or have robots pull the cars on & off of the car-carriers. This last idea would work. Or magically reduce fuel consumption or maintenance costs.

The main competition is driving. All these people can drive and own a car. And if you are owning your car anyway then the cost of driving seems like just gas, some meals, and a hotel (I hope, rather than 800-some miles all at one go, even though Google says 11h41mins). Any tolls? People don't tend to think about the extra oil change, wear on the tires, general wear and tear, and anyway those are that not that much money for a drive of this length.

800 miles, that's roughly $400 worth of gas+maintenance+depreciation. My operating costs using my 18yo fully-depreciated Camry would be >$200 for gas+maintenance+reserve for repairs, so Amtrak is highly competitive in this market. Unless I had multiple people in my car.

Banda and Arborwayfan,
You don't seem to understand there are people (especially seniors) who don't like to drive that far and others who don't fly. The Autotrain is their choice regardless of price. (as long as it is affordable) If Amtrak can make it profitable, it's money not taken from the taxpayer's pockets.

Jeff Smith wrote:<cough> profitability <cough>

I was wondering about possibilities of reducing crewing costs. As I said in an earlier post, the Auto-Train has a large labor force.
I understand this may be a sensitive subject, but it seems to me another way to profitability would be to reduce labor costs, by job sharing, or possibly sharing some positions with other Amtrak trains.
Train crew do a approximately 8 hour shift to Florence , layover for around 24 hours , then do a return 8 hour trip. Because it is over 6 hours it requires 2 engineers in the Cab. There are substantial costs involved in this , I don't know if doing it differently has been explored.

I believe AT is under a different union agreement than the rest of the system already.

BandA mentioned "magic" fuel savings. Would it save any money (gallons) for Amtrak to lease GEVO freight engines for this service, with either a P40/42 or an HEP car following?

Having a least 5 E44c4's (2 units each set with 1 spare)keeping the P-40 in HEP mode and isolated from MU'ing with the lead units might save some fuel.
Not sure if the P-40/42's have an "idle" HEP only mode like the F40ph did(prime mover at 600 RPM,Main Alternator supplied the HEP)

R&DB, I understand that. I often go by train and rent a car (Indiana to Utah) even though driving would be cheaper. And I have no problem with the Auto Train charging another 20 bucks or 50 bucks or more, if the train still mostly fills. There may be plenty of people willing to pay a higher price, especially at certain times of year. Apart from the snowbirds and other long-term travelers, you wouldn't have to stay very long for the price of auto train to be cheaper than renting a car at the other end (the auto part of the train fare, I mean).

Still, I suspect that there are relatively few people who would ship their car as freight (unless there are door-to-door services that are as easy to find and book as Amtrak). So I think the main competition is driving, or staying home.

Are they charging enough? No idea. I tend to figure the people who do the pricing are competent, but maybe I'm just too trusting.

David Benton wrote:

Jeff Smith wrote:<cough> profitability <cough>

I was wondering about possibilities of reducing crewing costs. As I said in an earlier post, the Auto-Train has a large labor force.
I understand this may be a sensitive subject, but it seems to me another way to profitability would be to reduce labor costs, by job sharing, or possibly sharing some positions with other Amtrak trains.
Train crew do a approximately 8 hour shift to Florence , layover for around 24 hours , then do a return 8 hour trip. Because it is over 6 hours it requires 2 engineers in the Cab. There are substantial costs involved in this , I don't know if doing it differently has been explored.

With the Hours of Service Law - the run requires two crews any way you cut. If the HOS was changed to 16 hours you would require two crews to complete the run.

Look elsewhere for your 'savings'.

I wasn't proposing changing any HOS rule changes. What I was thinking of probably wouldn't save much , unless the train crews could work in with the other Amtrak crew bases. That does appear to be a dim prospect.

R&DB wrote:

Why is it that clearances are available from VA to FL but not to the north?

Superliner cars and auto racks won't fit in the tunnels at Baltimore and the Hudson River.

The tunnels in/out of NY Penn have a clearance of approximately 16' 3" feet if I recall correctly from diagrams found online (Project Gutenberg-archived articles on the construction of Penn Station's East and Hudson River tunnels). Definitely would be a problem trying to fit those racks in them.

A thought . If CSX operated the Auto train their present crew districts would require 4 crews . As well since they would be in the locos that would require another train manager in the passenger cars. Crew would be charged by CSX at about $150,000 per person. Keeping qualified HEP T&E would mean probably mean about 8 crews including spares = $1.2M peer year.+ train managers cost unknown.