Cape Cod Rail, Bridges and Highways

Re: Boston to Cape rail

The only major problem with the Cape flyer is that the platform, in Hyannis, is very short. This means that the people in the last 4 or 5 cars need to walk through these cars to exit onto a platform. Only 4 exits open onto the platform. Car one (cafe/bike car) rear exit. Car two both exits. Car three front exit. I was happy to give them (as they requested several times) this feedback. However I'm looking forward to doing this trip again this summer.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

There's talk of extending the mini-high 1 extra car length in each direction, with the sidewalk abutting the Transportation Ctr. building becoming a second, wider platform egress. There is enough space between the track switch and front-facing locomotive to eventually buff it out into 350-foot full-high on that side. Unfortunately that's the longest they can go without reconfiguration of the yard track. CCCR needs the 600 ft. all-low on the other side for its historic equipment.

Admittedly, the layout fares much worse with a super-size commuter rail consist carrying bi-level coaches than it did back in the day when Amtrak was pulling only 3 Amfleet singles to that same mini-high.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

F-Line to Dudley said:
No, but it does go underneath the Sagamore.


The idea they have for taunting the drivers is to have info screens onboard that, among other things, show the traffic at the bridges and length of delays on the roads.
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You'd think a billboard by the bridge would be good enough. Say, half a mile or so before you get to the bridge, a "If you took the train, you'd be on the beach by now" sign.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2013/06/26/capeflyer-adding-service-for-july/I8Xorg4OhSYEewGzy23UjK/story.html

CapeFlyer adding service for July 4

Cape Cod regional transit officials say they are adding July 4th holiday service on the CapeFlyer weekend train between Boston and Cape Cod.

The Friday night through Sunday weekend service follows the regular MBTA’s Middleborough/Lakeville line, then continues to Buzzards Bay and Hyannis. It will run on Wednesday evening July 3 and on Thursday July 4th.

The evening train on July 3 will operate on the regular Friday night schedule. It leaves Boston at 5:12 p.m. and arriving in Hyannis by 7:50 p.m.
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Re: Boston to Cape rail

I would have loved to try this out but my vacation started on a Tuesday which precluded a rail trip. Any talk of have having a daily if it continues to perform well?
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

Interesting piece:
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130626/NEWS/130629709

Key take away from it:

In its first five weekends of operation there have been 3,200 passengers on the CapeFLYER, according to Kathleen Jensen with the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority.

The service requires about $10,800 in revenue each weekend to sustain itself and has averaged about $13,000 each weekend so far, Jensen wrote in an email to the Times.
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Now, that math doesn't add up to me. If a one way is $20 and a round trip is $35, 3200 passengers only gets you to $13,000/week if they're *all* one way tickets. If they were all round trip tickets, you'd get $22,000/week. This, of course, does not take into account dining car sales (which, again, Amtrak manages to lose money on, so hopefully the Flyer knows what they're doing better than Amtrak, which it seems they do.

Still, they're keeping above water, so thats certainly a good sign.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

DominusNovus said:
Interesting piece:
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130626/NEWS/130629709

Key take away from it:



Now, that math doesn't add up to me. If a one way is $20 and a round trip is $35, 3200 passengers only gets you to $13,000/week if they're *all* one way tickets. If they were all round trip tickets, you'd get $22,000/week. This, of course, does not take into account dining car sales (which, again, Amtrak manages to lose money on, so hopefully the Flyer knows what they're doing better than Amtrak, which it seems they do.

Still, they're keeping above water, so thats certainly a good sign.
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Maybe the net income (after employee pay, operating costs and such) is $13k?
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

datadyne007 said:
Maybe the net income (after employee pay, operating costs and such) is $13k?
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You mean profit? I don't think so, they're already listing the costs right there, in the $10,800 needed to break even. It seems to me that the author of the piece just had some of the figures at hand, and calculated the rest quickly.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

589 Cape FLYER passengers on the July 3 rush hour departure, standing room only, crews had to re-seat Cape passengers with luggage in the Middleboro cars and find commuters to volunteer to be standees in order to fit them all.

That ought to clinch a substantial schedule expansion for Labor Day Weekend.



Meanwhile, I was driving on 24S at 5:00 yesterday and the right-lane backups for the 495S exit were over 2 miles long stretching well back into West Bridgewater.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

DominusNovus said:
Interesting piece:
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130626/NEWS/130629709

Key take away from it:



Now, that math doesn't add up to me. If a one way is $20 and a round trip is $35, 3200 passengers only gets you to $13,000/week if they're *all* one way tickets. If they were all round trip tickets, you'd get $22,000/week. This, of course, does not take into account dining car sales (which, again, Amtrak manages to lose money on, so hopefully the Flyer knows what they're doing better than Amtrak, which it seems they do.

Still, they're keeping above water, so thats certainly a good sign.
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This is what I wrote on Railroad.net about this. Basically my conclusion is that they will run about 33% ahead of breakeven across the whole 15-week season--which would probably be enough to run 33% longer (through the fall "shoulder" season until Columbus day)

LET'S GET A COMMON DENOMINATOR

Man, you can tell newspaper reporters were never in a class where they had to make the units match. This article reports just about every possible ratio of numbers that *dont* match ("needs per week", "collected in 5 weeks", and "needed for 15 weekends")

PER WEEKEND: RUNNING 24% AHEAD OF NEED SO FAR

So here is the bottom line: the Cape Flyer "needs" $10,800 per weekend (for whatever policy-makers need it for to call it a success...we don't really care) and they've "gotten" $13,400 per weekend., so revenues are averaging 24% ahead of "need" on what is still the shoulder season.
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Re: Boston to Cape rail

F-Line to Dudley said:
Meanwhile, I was driving on 24S at 5:00 yesterday and the right-lane backups for the 495S exit were over 2 miles long stretching well back into West Bridgewater.
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I was on 24 South at about 2 p.m. to get on 495, and there already was a moderate backup (probably five minutes to get from the rest stop onto 495), I can only imagine how bad it was later.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

Arlington said:
This is what I wrote on Railroad.net about this. Basically my conclusion is that they will run about 33% ahead of breakeven across the whole 15-week season--which would probably be enough to run 33% longer (through the fall "shoulder" season until Columbus day)
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That would be great. I am loving how much demand there is for this service to increase. I'd like to see how an additional round trip at least one day over Labor Day weekend would fare.

It would be a loss if the service ended on Labor Day:

September can be warmer than June on the Cape. In September, Hyannis' average high temperature is 71 degrees (compared to 72 in June). Memorial Day to Columbus Day makes more sense, even from a meteorological perspective.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

For anyone that's taken the Flyer, what drinks do they serve besides beer? Any juice, tea, soda, etc.?
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

DominusNovus said:
For anyone that's taken the Flyer, what drinks do they serve besides beer? Any juice, tea, soda, etc.?
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3fa2.jpg



609 passengers on the return trip last night, although it was late departing because the train was held for all the connecting buses that were stuck in traffic trying to get to Hyannis. Looks like they might have to juggle the bus schedules to be a little more fail-safe.


BTW...8-mile backup on 6 WB at the Sagamore this morning that was still going strong near lunchtime.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

Plain OJ and Cranberry... sigh. Gonna have to do something about that; particularly at 3.25 a glass. Thats nuts, especially since it must be concentrate from a container, rather than anything pre-bottled (or they would list the brand right there).

Too bad they told me they're out of room.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

DominusNovus said:
Plain OJ and Cranberry... sigh. Gonna have to do something about that; particularly at 3.25 a glass. Thats nuts, especially since it must be concentrate from a container, rather than anything pre-bottled (or they would list the brand right there).
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That's train food for ya. Hard to price reasonably, Hard to cover costs.
DominusNovus said:
Too bad they told me they're out of room.
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Out of room for what?
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

Arlington said:
That's train food for ya. Hard to price reasonably, Hard to cover costs.

Out of room for what?
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Other options. I work for a major beverage company.

As for the price, I'm looking at it from the eye of someone 'in the biz'. If they're just using bag concentrate (like most places do), and charging more than sparkling water (where the cost of goods sold should be quite a bit higher per ounce), something's not adding up there. Either they're counting on so many people buying juice that they know they can get away with charging a a premium relative to the other drinks (unlikely), they're actually buying a pre-bottled brand of juice (such as minute maid, but that would be much cheaper than sparkling water, as well; and if it was any more well known brand, they'd list it on the menu), or... they're just not pricing it right.

I like mysteries.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

How well would this have to do to see a single round trip on weekday evenings? I know obviously the traffic isn't as bad so there's less of a draw, but getting out of Boston at the end of the day is a mess regardless of what day it is, and it'd be great to have this as an option.
 
Re: Boston to Cape rail

stellarfun said:
Since May 24, CapeFlyer trains have attracted 6,269 riders, generating between $112,000 and $115,000 in revenue, according to the transit authority. Cahir said the service costs $165,000 to operate for the 15-week run and requires at least 310 passengers a week to break even.
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This totally confirms my math that they could easily afford to run until Columbus day. I'll try to update my pro-forma forecast of passengers and demand, but you'll see from this picture that the peak season is going to be good and the Labor-to-Columbus Day season is nearly as busy as Memorial-to-Independence.

The height of the sawtooth reveals net changes in cars on/off the Cape but some of the demand is "buried" in the baseline "long wave"

Either way, the Late Shoulder Season has the same "shape" as the Early Shoulder Season that has already been so successful, and they're going to bank a whole lot of cash in the next 8 weeks.


2011 TOTAL VEHICLES ON CAPE
(bridge volumes correlate to both height of line and height of "sawtooth")
file.php
 
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