CHICAGO — As expected, shortened consists and surging holiday demand are responsible for Amtrak sellouts across the country, notably on segments of virtually every long-distance train nearest population centers, as well as on the Pacific Northwest’s Cascades, New York State’s Empire Service, and Midwest corridors.
Repeating their analysis earlier this year for the Labor Day holiday, researchers at DePaul University’s Chaddick Center for Metropolitan Development are tracking coach and business-class fare levels and sellouts starting the Wednesday before Thanksgiving through Sunday, Nov. 30 [see “Increased passenger train frequencies….” Trains.com, Aug. 28, 2025]. Beyond that, a Trains.com spot check on Midwest routes showed many sellouts on Tuesday, Nov. 26, and Monday, Dec. 1, as well.
The Chaddick report is to be updated throughout the weekend by graduate student Samantha Rouzan. It notes sellouts are widespread for all Chicago hub service on Wednesday and Sunday, as has usually been the case. DePaul professor and mobility expert Joseph Schwieterman observes, “Some trains have seats open up after selling out [these are noted with an asterisk on the report], but they tend to sell out again. We noticed business-class demand is particularly strong.”
Even harder hit is New York’s Empire Corridor, which with few exceptions has no inventory on any train Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday. On other days, there are scattered sellouts; any remaining New York-Albany seats are bumping up against the $99 price cap to which Amtrak agreed following pressure from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. [See “Amtrak, Metro-North to provide …,” Trains.com, Oct. 20, 2025.]
On the Northeast Corridor itself, uniformly high fares yielded only a handful of sellouts; as of Sunday, Nov. 23, those occurred mostly on the Boston-New York segment where fewer frequencies are scheduled. However, extensions of NEC trains to and from Charlottesville, Va., and beyond are registering near-total sellouts on Wednesday and Sunday in at least one direction, and are also evident on trains operating through Richmond, Va., to Norfolk and Newport News. Pennsylvania’s Keystone Corridor is also experiencing scattered sellouts those days.
In the west, there is no Cascades availability on the heavy travel days between Vancouver, B.C., and Eugene, Ore., since they generally continue to operate with short Amfleet sets, though even Talgo departures are sold out.
California trains generally have space at relatively low fares. However, it is hard to get from the San Francisco Bay Area to and from Southern California, with the Coast Starlight’s already-paltry coach capacity sold out as of Nov. 23 in both directions on Monday through Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. On the newly renamed Gold Runner corridor [see “Rebrand just part of Gold Runner’s path …,” Trains.com, Nov 19, 2025], the problem is lack of capacity on the buses that connect with trains at Bakersfield, Calif.
Trains.com will continue to monitor developments throughout the Thanksgiving weekend.
One more article supporting the argument why Amtrak should be focusing on expanding frequency and capacity on proven corridor routes instead of the wishfull lets expand the national route with one day trains on new routs.
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In the meantime, you could have easily written the same for anyone traveling by plane over the holiday weekend. The later you tried booking the flight the less options you had on sky high prices. Then you hope you didn’t have to cancel or even change your non refundable non changeable flight.
Rode the NEC yesterday (Wed) NY Penn to DC. Conductor said 900+ aboard. Left and arrived on time. Speed still 125 mph, same as 50 y/ago. Very rough ride, which tells me deferred maintenance. No chance to check the locos on each end.
Enjoy the holiday!
I’m not traveling this week, but my mind hasn’t come back down to earth from my last trip two weeks ago. Hiawatha (Superliner SB, Siemens NB) bracketing R/T on METRA Milwaukee West to Roselle (Illinois). Enjoyed every mile. Smooth track, pleasant ride, on both routes.