National Association of Railroad Passengers: www.narprail.org

Executive Summary of NARP Rebuttal to DOT-IG Sleeping Car/Dining Car Report


Link to full rebuttal

A COACH-ONLY NATIONAL NETWORK IS NOT A VIABLE CONCEPT AND WOULD NOT LAST. Amtrak has run sleeper-less, diner-less trains—and discontinued them.  Before Amtrak, Southern Pacific ran its “Streamliner Sunset” for a time with just coaches and an automat food car (and checked baggage service), but later restored diner and sleepers.  There are, however, opportunities for providing food service more cost-effectively.

THE IG’S COACH/SLEEPER SUBSIDY BREAKDOWN IS WRONG. Under his analysis, sleeping-car service bears 100% of the costs of checked baggage and dining car services. 

  • Need for checked baggage service is a function of length of the passenger’s time away from home, not sleeper v. coach.  Ken Mead dismissed baggage service, saying “on half the routes, less than 1/3 of the stations have” it.  This is because Amtrak has many small, unstaffed stations, but his comment obscured a more important fact:  all major Amtrak cities and many smaller ones do offer checked baggage, so it is available to the majority of Amtrak passengers.  It has become more important, since—for safety and security reasons—Amtrak now limits each passenger to two carry-on bags (excluding laptops and a few other items).
  • Many coach passengers use the diner—probably those passengers traveling the longer distances and thus paying the higher fares.
  • The IG may have allocated lounge car costs between coach and sleeper, but—under the IG’s coach-only scenario—coach service would bear the full cost of the lounge and thus be more heavily subsidized than today.

THE IG’S ASSUMPTION THAT “WHATEVER FOOD SERVICE IS ULTIMATELY PROVIDED…WILL BE AT NO NET COST” IS UNREALISTIC. Indeed, long-distance air service still provides meals with the ticket, as does Amtrak’s much-admired Auto Train, so food service cost recovery on these services (as on American Orient Express) is “zero.” The purpose of food and beverage service is to enhance ticket revenues, not serve as a profit center.

THE LONG-DISTANCE TRAIN’S VIABILITIY DEPENDS ON SERVING MULTIPLE FUNCTIONS; THAT’S WHY THE TRAINS ARE WELL USED. The tiny size of rail’s market share in individual, long-distance markets does not justify taking the rail choice away from people who want or need it (e.g. for medical reasons).  Similarly, the fact that some rural communities (and a few big cities) are served at odd hours is not an argument for eliminating well-used trains (but can be an argument for adding service).  Congress repeatedly has endorsed the national network.

--Ross B. Capon, Executive Director, National Association of Railroad Passengers