OAKLAND, CALIF., November 29, 2010 — Thanksgiving travelers helped to set a Capitol Corridor holiday ridership record this year. From Tuesday, November 23 through Sunday, November 28, 2010, 26,449 passengers ditched their cars in favor of riding the train. This is a three percent increase over the same period last year.
“This record ridership clearly demonstrates that train travel is once again experiencing an increase in popularity,†Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority (CCJPA) Board Chair Jim Holmes said. “Our 2010 Thanksgiving ridership beat out our previous threshold achieved in 2008 when 26,265 passengers hopped on board our trains.â€
Capitol Corridor officials attribute the record ridership to its high on-time performance by its host railroad, Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR), high customer satisfaction with CCJPA’s operating partner, Amtrak, and pre-holiday preparation by CCJPA staff.
“After the high Thanksgiving ridership in 2008, we learned to expect thousands of holiday travelers,†CCJPA Managing Director David Kutrosky said. “This year, we were prepared. We arranged to add 5,700 seats on the Capitol Corridor, a 14% increase in seating availability. We did this by assigning all available spare cars to our holiday operations and leasing a trainset from Caltrain, which enabled us to add 1200 seats on the Wednesday before and the Sunday after Thankgsiving—two of the busiest rail travel days of the year. All together, these arrangements were the equivalent of adding three trainsets to our daily service.â€
CCJPA issued a news release, emailed customers and used Twitter, Facebook, and its website to announce its increased seating capacity.
