Amtrak has quietly published their fare pricing system for profitable routes in a congressional report, including the NER, Acela, AutoTrain, and a few other big city links. It's the same as the big three legacy air carriers: fare buckets, just on a different demand curve based on rail passengers and not on flights. The rest of their routes are fare buckets with an artificial (sometimes government imposed) cost basis adjustment.
Amtrak has quietly published their fare pricing system for profitable routes in a congressional report, including the NER, Acela, AutoTrain, and a few other big city links. It's the same as the big three legacy air carriers: fare buckets, just on a different demand curve based on rail passengers and not on flights. The rest of their routes are fare buckets with an artificial (sometimes government imposed) cost basis adjustment.
And since fewer Amtrak riders change or cancel than fliers, there's no magic, earlier and less flexible fares cost less and later ones cost more for any given date. If you're date flexible, check several. Since they're running so thin on equipment lately, the days of 10 years ago when they'd add rolling stock to a consist and the prices would drastically adjust down are gone.
Do check for any discounts you may qualify for though - AARP still has one, and AAA used to (I don't believe they do anymore).
And, fun Disney fact: the WDWRR has to have its equipment periodically inspected for safety, and to do this they ship the locomotives and consists up to Amtrak's Altoona, PA, shops.
Right. But nobody seems to know when the fares will be adjusted, and exactly how Amtrak decides which bucket to use. Fares do sometimes drop a month or 2 before the travel date, but which dates drop and which dates increase seems completely unpredictable, looking in from the outside.
NARP stands for National Association of Rail Passengers, which is now Rail Passengers Association, a rail advocacy group which is open to anyone. The Amtrak website says members get a 10% discount on most fares, but that applies only to the base coach fare, not to the sleeping accommodation charge and probably not to the vehicle charge, so on the Auto Train you might save about $15-$20. Also, the lowest advance purchase non-refundable Saver fares are not discounted. Membership is $40 a year.
Yeah, that was caused by increasing the consist which automatically adjusted the buckets I mentioned, which sadly doesn't happen nearly as much as it did anymore. And it was very difficult to predict, because it had to be a reasonably high demand run and the equipment had to be in the right place for it. On the Autotrain though, changes like this are basically nonexistent because they don't stop anywhere that would allow it. Very occasionally the regional still gets it though, because the Amfleet cars are the only ones they have large numbers of spares of.
