Passengers??

To add another dimension to this, how many seats are occupied can depend where the train is on its route. For example, the Rio Grande Zephyr could have most seats filled from Denver to Glenwood Springs, but after that to Salt Lake, it could be pretty empty. Time of year would also be a factor. In other words, you can fill as many seats as you wish and it will be fine!

Terry

For the last several years, Amtrak train have been running to capacity.  I.E. sold out.  My experience over the years riding many Amtrak routes is that the trains are typically pretty full.  I'd estimate that at any given point on the route 80% of the seats are full.

@GG1 4877 posted:

My experience over the years riding many Amtrak routes is that the trains are typically pretty full.  I'd estimate that at any given point on the route 80% of the seats are full.

Agreed.  If they have too many cars planned for a given train, and not enough seat, or accommodation, sales as the departure date approaches they'll simply remove cars so that their capacity matches sales.  Because of this 80% to 90% full is my experience on nearly every route I've taken, and going back over the last 25 years.

Mike

Have taken both a northeast corridor commuter and Acela, Washington to NYC, and BWI to Philly in the last couple years and found them to be pretty filled with just a few empty seats.

Thank you all. I need to buy more people!

I may check the unemployment office.  Greg

NE corridor to Richmond VA, completely full to DC then starts to thin out. When I road through to Williamsburg about 20% occupied.

The NE Corridor is a very different reality from almost any where else AMTRAK runs. The number of passengers that Lionel, MTH and any others provide in their cars - example- Lionel "Pocohantas" cars feature "Passenger and train crew figures"- but that means realistically few, something like a dozen per passenger car.  And when you add passengers, they will not match too well to the originals.  Obviously for cost reasons.  Imagine if they were to put in a 75% fill maybe 50 in a car. Using Arttista painted figures?  Even plastic Chinese 1/43 painted figures would be cost prohibitive at about $15, which once multiplied by the manufacturer- distributor- retailer markups might add $40- $50 to the retail price.

Buy unpainted plastic figures and plan on some time to paint them all.

For my 5 passenger cars, MTH Railking ones, I bought the 100 or so pack of unpainted people sold by MTH.  They were the right size for the seats, even though I consider the undersized otherwise.  I painted them and glued them in place.  For what I wanted them for there were too many standing figures so I cut the bottom half off of some and glued them to a seat.  Some remained standing and that was good too.

I also bought (I don't remember how many) people from circus craft and painted them too.  I had to chop their legs from the knee down to fit the seats.  One thing that I liked is that I could slightly alter them.

= walt

Circus Craft ones:

MTH ones:

I'd rather have the passengers be slightly small than too large.  I've even resorted to some HO figure packs, they make good children in the cars.