Travel and vacations

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- USA & Canada (http://www.travelbanter.com/forumdisplay.php?f=17)

- - AMTRAK (http://www.travelbanter.com/showthread.php?t=17967)

I always wanted to take a day-trip to New York City.
It's about 85 (?) miles north of Phila,
so I looked into round-trip fare for two.....

WoW ! No wonder AMTRAK is losing customers.
$163 plus tax for a round trip fare from Phila to NYC.

I think I could rent a limo for that rate......

Doesn't this seem excessive for such a short trip ?
Or are my ideas of fair fare outdated ?

rj

RJ wrote:
I always wanted to take a day-trip to New York City.
It's about 85 (?) miles north of Phila,
so I looked into round-trip fare for two.....

WoW ! No wonder AMTRAK is losing customers.
$163 plus tax for a round trip fare from Phila to NYC.

It's $48 each way. Your travel agent is skimming $67.

Also, if you have more time, you can take SEPTA + NJT via Trenton, for less
than half the price.

miguel
--
Hundreds of travel photos from around the world: http://travel.u.nu/

In article , Miguel Cruz wrote:
RJ wrote:
I always wanted to take a day-trip to New York City.
It's about 85 (?) miles north of Phila,
so I looked into round-trip fare for two.....

WoW ! No wonder AMTRAK is losing customers.

Nah, the Northeast Corridor (NEC) is Amtrak's most profitable venture where
it goes slightly above 'break even'; they use some of that money to help
balance the books (the best they can) from what I understand.

Amtrak's problems aren't from a lack of desire for ridership, but from:

* Outdated track infrastructure incapable of higher requirements
(track strength, catenary power lines, etc) for supporting
significantly faster trains

* Historical FRA (Federal Railroad Administration) rules putting
a cap on maximum speed of 79 MPH in lots of places

* Sharing tracks with slower freight trains -- freight trains try
to do their thing at night or other times, but sometimes it's
just simply unavoidable to need a track at the same time as a
passenger train

* Having to pay for retired rail workers' pension plan -- a
significant chunk of Amtrak's budget; about 25%? -- even if
they were freight rail workers and never Amtrak due to a federal
law that has not been repealed or amended

* Lack of desire by municipalities to build out rail with their
transportation funds

* Lack of ability in legally securing right-of-way (ROW) for
expansion or significant track improvements

* Mindset of car-is-king in the U.S.; Americans has a real love
affair with the car, especially since there isn't as a good
long distance-to-local-transit connection (or much in way of
local train/subway infrastructure in most cities)

* Difficulty in competiting with airlines for long distance travel
(The usual solution is to market long distance trains as a
luxury/vacation kind of deal, but that isn't cheap and has
relatively few people doing so)

All of the above and other factors combines to make it virtually impossible
for the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (better known as Amtrak) to
ever be profitable in its present arrangement.

$163 plus tax for a round trip fare from Phila to NYC.

It's $48 each way. Your travel agent is skimming $67.

He may have been looking at Acela Express trains both ways, which would
bring the price to that ballpark... similarly for one Metroliner train with
a business class fare and one Acela Express train (which has no coach class
fares).

Doing it as coach both ways on non-Metroliner/Acela Express trains should
bring it to $100 exactly (not including tax/fees) -- did some spot checks,
such as Philadelphia 30th St. station to NY Penn Station on the 19th.

He should be aware that some trains will require a reserved coach ticket,
and some have sold out in coach (requiring a more expensive fare class).

Also, if you have more time, you can take SEPTA + NJT via Trenton, for less
than half the price.

Indeed.

There's another possible alternative... drive to the NYC area, but not into
Manhattan, park at a train station, and catch the train into the city for
the day. No issues with overnight parking since it'd be a day trip. I point
that out just for completeness, especially if he's price-conscious.

-Dan

On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 19:09:20 GMT, Rita
wrote:

You can get there for a fraction of Amtrak's cost on
New Jersey transit. So come visit us -- it is affordable
that way.

Another option is going Greyhound.

Michael

If you would like to send a private email to me, please take out the TRASH, so to speak. Please do not email me something which you also posted.

In article , 127.0.0.1 wrote:
On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 19:37:21 +0000 (UTC), Dan Foster
wrote:

Nah, the Northeast Corridor (NEC) is Amtrak's most profitable venture where
it goes slightly above 'break even';

not true, no AMTRAK make money, the NEC might lose less than the
others but it is still a money loser

Looks like you're correct. I was thinking of a specific line on the NEC
which *does* make money -- in 1999, Metroliner (which the Acela Express
mostly replaced) made a profit but when all of the NEC train services was
added up, they lost $124 million that year even though Metroliner made a
$53 million profit. Across the entire NEC, operating ratio was 1.22:1 --
that is, it cost $1.22 per $1 of revenue to run the NEC. In other words,
losing money.

-Dan

In article ,
wrote:

WoW ! No wonder AMTRAK is losing customers.
$163 plus tax for a round trip fare from Phila to NYC.

That must be for the premium Acela Express service, with the fancy new
high-speed trains. The slower trains (Acela Regional) are much less
expensive (and not all that much slower). A few years ago I paid
something like $120-$140 round trip from Washington DC to Newark NJ, which
is quite a bit further than Philly-NYC.

As others have noticed, you can save a lot of money (at the cost of more
time) on the Philly-NYC route by taking a SEPTA commuter train to Trenton
NJ and then changing to a NJT commuter train for the rest of the trip.

--
Jon Bell Presbyterian College
Dept. of Physics and Computer Science Clinton, South Carolina USA

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 03:32:57 +0000 (UTC) in
rec.travel.usa-canada, Dan Foster wrote:

Across the entire NEC, operating ratio was 1.22:1 --
that is, it cost $1.22 per $1 of revenue to run the NEC. In other words,
losing money.

and tell me which highways and airports have NO government
subsidy? they lose money all the time, and have never been
expected to break even.

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 12:54:05 -0500, 127.0.0.1 wrote:

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 09:26:12 -0700, Hatunen wrote:
There's nothing wrong with government subsidies, per se. IF the
people want them.

your statements are all well and good but in some places like NYC, the
taxation to support city transit riders reaches far and wide to tax
people who receive no benefits from mass transit, and that is where
resentment for government subsidies begins

Everyone in the regioin ultimately receives benefits from mass
transit.

************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *