Comments on: Don’t Let the Reason Foundation Railroad California

By: adirondacker12800

adirondacker12800 — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:01:24 +0000

Which works out well if you want to sell out trains within hours of opening the reservations for them. Not so well if you actually want to book a reservation.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2009/01/08/2003433222

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 01:24:13 +0000

Taiwan does have significant HSR, though.

By: Militant Angeleno

Militant Angeleno — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:55:30 +0000

Never take the Reason Foundation and Liberatrians seriously. They’re all a bunch of overweight, balding white men who’ve never kissed a girl before they married their mail-order bride.

By: jimsf

jimsf — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:04:17 +0000

Sure that’s what I do, but you know, the masses, they like to do everything together in big clumps all at the same time.

By: adirondacker12800

adirondacker12800 — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:52:04 +0000

China doesn’t have significant amounts of high speed rail yet. They put anything on the tracks that runs just like Amtrak does on the Northeast Corridor. And I don’t know if people would put up with standing all the way like Chinese do for New Years. They handled it really well in early 2008

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3264827.ece

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:45:22 +0000

I’m sure that the Chinese and Taiwanese HSR agencies know how to deal with Chinese New Year crunches better than Amtrak knows how to deal with Christmas crunch.

So it’s not as if CAHSR won’t have foreign expertise to draw from.

By: Rafael

Rafael — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:12:19 +0000

Of course, you could just decide to celebrate Thanksgiving either early or late, just to avoid the general travel madness and elevated ticket prices.

By: jimsf

jimsf — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:25:25 +0000

all my customers sum up air travel with the same exact word “hassle”

By: jimsf

jimsf — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:24:01 +0000

Always book early if for no other reason than to get the lowest fare. Last minute hsr fares on full trains will be full “Y” fares Book early enough and even on the busiest day of the year ( day before tgiving) you can get a “D” fare.

HSR is likely to use fare buckets rather than set one way commuter type tariffs in order to manage revenue per demand. (peak , off peak, excursion, advance purchase, etc) This allows them to maximize revenue in high demand classes and time slots, while building ridership in low demand periods.

By: adirondacker12800

adirondacker12800 — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 04:59:52 +0000

19 TPH. Amtrak has 4 slots at peak giving a total of 23, though there are supposedly 60 minute time periods in December when the total is 25 or 26 – “shopper specials” are added to the schedules.

On holidays most workplaces close. That’s one of the characteristics of days called holidays. Commuters being wily creatures don’t go to work when their workplace is closed. Commuter agencies have noticed this and run less trains on holidays. Usually a Sunday schedule on major holidays and Saturday schedules on lesser ones.

That frees up track capacity for Amtrak. Unfortunately Amtrak doesn’t have enough cars and locomotives to take advantage of it. They lease equipment from MARC and NJTransit on particularly busy days. So when you book that seat on a train that only runs on Thanksgiving day chances are very good that it will be a commuter train that is operating between NY and DC. I’m sure it’s a cozy ride snuggled in to a NJTransit bilevel between New Carrolton and Metropark. The train numbers are 3xxx. They don’t appear in the printed schedules.

CAHSR won’t have that luxury because there aren’t commuter agencies with excess cars and locomotives that are rated for 220 MPH. . . book early…