The issue
Train #27, the westbound Empire Builder from Chicago to Portland on Friday, 7/16/10, currently has all of its bedrooms sold out. That includes all Roomettes, the Bedrooms, and the Family Bedroom. Coach seats still exist, but I doubt many of us would want to endure that.
When I had checked a few weeks ago, everything was still available. The scenarios I had worked out for myself had me going various routes (in Roomette) from Philadelphia to Portland, and all were between $603 and $833 one way coast to coast.
Two of our regulars happened to meet this past weekend and checked the similar conditions, and they found out this bad news. I immediately looked into instead taking Train #7 of Friday 7/16/10, the same train but to Seattle instead. I found that there were very few Roomettes left ( tonight it's down to one! ), and that what still existed was approximately $800 one way, just from Chicago to Seattle. That didn't even include whatever means I would get from Philly to Chicago, be it Capitol Limited from Washington, Pennsylvanian/Capitol via Pittsburgh, or Northeast Regional/Lake Shore Limited via New York. Potentially then, I was looking at a Grand for this trip.... which by the way is solo -- taking Michael at this point is a non-issue.
First thing I did was to look at adjacent dates. There are reasons one cannot toy too much with the already selected dates. 1-2 days might not hurt things too much. But 3-4 days would, and they could potentially place us in a city that has no weekend commuter service (READ Portland and Seattle) on a weekend. There would go those plans. So the days of the week that we start and end the Fest are important.
The solutions
Solution #1 would be to try and quickly snap up the Chicago-Seattle #7 tickets for the 16th out of Chicago. But now that is down to one last ticket, which would be pointless to buy as the rest of the group would be locked out. So stymied at doing the Empire Builder from Chicago on the 16th, I looked at adjacent dates. Saturday 7/17, one day later, also has all bedrooms sold out on #27, and the Seattle section has 4 Roomettes left at $798. On Thursday, 7/15, one day earlier, things may still be possible to go to Portland... but we need to re-evaluate our activities in Portland and Vancouver since we would be a day ahead of the plan. And if things end up working better for taking #7, we could always juggle our visits to the three cities, and do Portland last so that we the return on #28 instead of #8. But again a weekday visit has to mesh with weekdays-only activities such as WES or Seattle's Sounder.
Solution #2 was suggested during our chat session. This would entail taking the westbound California Zephyr (#5) from Chicago to Sacramento, and then the Coast Starlight northbound (#14) Sacramento to Portland. This would require adding one day, brining the total travels from 13 to 14. The latter could be an issue with those who get no more than 2 weeks off from work. We would have the good part of a day to kill in SAC, and then one more overnight train ride from there to PDX. So in this scenario, we'd leave east coast points on Wednesday the 14th, and Chicago on the 15th (Thursday), and then we would still get to Portland on Sunday (albeit in the late afternoon and thus unable to do the intended Sunday activities besides dinner). Everything has its pros and cons.
Solution #3 came to me today, by suggestion of "Lightning" (Mark). His idea was to move the whole fest to another week. I can't go a week later, because it's a no-no at my employer to miss a monthend. I tried a week earlier -- that is, leaving from Chicago on Friday 7/9, and got the same miserable results as I did for 7/16. So that may not work. However, one other idea would be to try doing this in August rather than July. I have yet to research Amtrak's situation, but if the Fest's east coast travel starts on a Thursday as it was to have in July, then the optimum start date would be Thursday, August 12th. I will check Amtrak's inventory for potential August dates. But this raises yet another problem, in that some may have already put in for a July vacation.
Solution #4 would involve doing something that I could get hurt for suggesting. At all of our long July Fests, at least one or two participants have flown to or from the host cities where we were riding trains... Some flew in one direction and did Amtrak in the other. Flying doesn't excite me at all, given the issues with TSA, limitations on what you can bring, and being charged for them to handle your luggage. We may have people in our usual group who for whatever reason CANNOT or WILL NOT fly. I would at a last resort, but I would not be happy being in a tiny seat with no legroom for 6 hours... nor even 2 hours. But it's something to consider if everyone is willing to get themselves to and from the PNW area and then we can just do the rail activities there.
Solution #5 is to change the venue entirely. I would not be pleased in doing this, because I've been comfortable in putting this together... and Mark has helped me a lot so far with the advance footwork needed to make everything just right when we get there. There have been suggestions to move the planned 2011 Atlanta-New Orleans-Memphis trip up a year to 2010 (feasible, as nothing new is going to open in those cities between now and when we intended to go). Another suggestion would be visiting Pittsburgh, PA (with a side trip to Johnstown Incline) and Charlotte, NC (side trip to Raleigh to ride the Piedmont). I've previously had NC and PGH as separate 3-4 day Fests, but putting them together would fill up 7 or 8 days. There would be an overnight layover in either Washington, DC or Philadelphia where we'd stay the night and possibly ride some trains there by choice of the participants. Somebody also suggested dusting off the Rockies RailFest, which I had originally penciled in for 2011, but then I had pushed it back a few years because they have a lot under construction in both cities that we would miss if we went so soon. I say keep that for 2013 to 2015 when we have more rail lines to fill our time.
Let's talk
So this needs some serious discussion. I'll take it here, and I'll take it by e-mail since not everyone visits this board every day. Those who e-mail me I'll put their ideas up on the board to share what they have to say. Hopefully soon we can arrive at a consensus as to what we should do, especially in light of the disappearing Roomettes.
Please add your comments below if you plan to attend, and suggest what you think would be the best of the above alternatives, or even share one of your own.
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Eastbound I am looking at Train #8 out of Seattle on Saturday, 8/21. A Roomette currently goes for $461 SEA-CHI, and to the East Coast between $600 and $700 depending on which route one takes east of CHI. Bedrooms are still available on the Builder; but again the Family Bedroom is already gone.
