Posted on 03/16/2014 11:13:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
Somebody is going to pay for them.
Bingo!
Profitability will only be possible when the government stops interfering.
This program will attract bums, not writers. Just like the Bay Area “Spare the Air” days attracted (when tickets were free) the worst sort of “commuters.”
Brought to you by the same genuises who offered us the bullet train.
I have never seen on TV or heard on radio one marketing add for Amtrack.
Therefore few people who don’t/ can’t drive or afford to fly ever even think of amtrack. It’s a distant blip on the A to B option radar.
Thus how government works, free money for the most ineffective, incompetent out there, why care? Actual passengers are a pain in the ass, it is therefore working exact all as designed.
Once I owned a Railroad.... Brother can you spare a dime
Outside of the urban conglomeration corridors: “Where’s MUH ride?”
And I think Amtrak should also offer free rides to circus clowns (real ones, not members of the Senate). The clowns will make train travel more fun, and ridership will therefore increase.
Oh, wait a minute. Some people are afraid of clowns. Amtrak would also need to offer free rides to psychologists.
Amtrak should be SHUT DOWN and Sold off in pieces yesterday. For a good read an Amtrak I suggest:
http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/transportation/privatizing-amtrak
See and travel the Glorious White Sea Canal, a
miracle of Stalinist engineering...
At least Stalin connected all of Moscow’s rivers.
Amtrak is the train to nowhere.
Amtrak is great on its Jack London Square to LA Union Station routes, but last week I missed a train by minutes and found I had to buy a whole new ticket for the next train. Not passenger friendly in that regard.
When there are empty seats, the marginal cost of an additional rider is near zero (this is the fundamental fact in all transit economics); and there's a possibility that the articles will drum up more business. IOW, it's cheap advertising.
It will all come down to the quality of the travel experience. If the ride is uncomfortable, with minimal amenities; and if the scenery is boring (or even ugly industrial sprawl); then no amount of purple prose is going to put more bums on seats. Unfortunately, only very expensive tourism-orinated trains offer that type of travel experience — one where the traveling is more important than the destination. Long-distance train travel is obsolete, as a means of getting from A to B, so traveler's wanting to get somewhere else fast, will always chose air travel over trains.*
* High speed rail could convince many to chose trains over airplanes — but, only with enormous subsidies.
Willie Green Memorial Ping.
Of course the canals (being HAND dug) turned out
to not have enough depth, but Stalin too took famous
writers on a tour to proclaim the joys of socialist
success.
Why not let illegals ride for free? Have they thought of that?
Just as anybody can be an “artist” i suppose anybody can be a “writer” as well.
Looks like i’m going on a FREE rail trip to Key Largo!!!!!!
“Amtrak is great on its Jack London Square to LA Union Station routes”
I ride it from LA’s Union Station too on some occasions where I’m lazy to drive. Comic Con for example. Believe it or not, there’s not one train that goes to Vegas.
“Brought to you by the same genuises who offered us the bullet train.”
Trains are a very socialist thing. They offer the government total control of the winners and losers. The winners get train stations and the losers don’t.
Socialists want control and public transportation (for the masses, not themselves.) In Tallahassee the local government wanted to severely restrict the only two major east/west roads. The stated objective was to “force people to use public transportation.” This was initiated because a drunk college student was hit on the six lane road beside the campus. So, it was also for the safety of the CHILDREN. Two lanes were to be dedicated bike and jogging lanes. Two were to become high capacity and buss lanes and just two others were to be for cars. So, it would have taken hours to crawl past the campus. The hew and cry was WAY more than they expected. So, they didn’t do it.
But they took the other street, a narrow and heavily traveled four lane and made it a winding brick two lane set at 25 mph. If you go 30 you’ll get a ticket. It is very heavily enforced by dedicated ticket writers. The stated idea was to make this big beautiful walking mall but most of the businesses went under while they worked on it. (They’ve mostly been replaced now.)
Free rides will definitely help that bottom line all right
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