deathtopumpkins wrote:Why does every differing opinion on this site always have to be
met with personal insults?
I'm a supporter of Amtrak. I wasn't saying anything negative. I just think that the demographics of passengers on long distance trains are likely to be older than passengers on corridor trains, based on my experience and logical assumptions.
"I wasn't saying anything negative." I took it differently: propaganda-fed opinion contrary to facts. Though I'll accept that your intent may have been harmless.
"Land cruises" is an
extremely negative phrase. It's a cute capsule of the ugly claim that these trains are luxuries for the few, subsidized by the rest of us.
The haters want to divide and conquer Amtrak supporters, pitting corridor riders against long distance riders. So I expect to hear "land cruises" from the haters, not from a supporter of Amtrak.
Let's look again at facts re the
Southwest Chief that I referred to before, chosen because a possible route change is being hotly debated hereabouts.
Source: NARP,
http://www.narprail.org/resources/ridership-statistics" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.
The Fact Sheet shows the end-to-end trip length to be 2,256 miles. But Chicago-L.A. is only the third ranked city pair, behind Chicago-Kansas City and Albuquerque-L.A. All riders between Chicago and several California stops plus all riders from L.A. to several Illinois stops, the trips of 2,000 miles or more, amount to merely 14.2% of the
Chief's total.
Even counting all sleeper passengers as old, retired cruisers on a vacation -- and ignoring the fact that business people and old, retired people going to medical appointments as well as others use sleepers -- the sleeper pax are 61,000 out of 349,000 total, barely 17%, or 1 out of 6.
The 83% of riders in coach, 4 out of 5, travel on average 773 miles, about 1/3rd of the distance L.A.-Chicago. And I'll assert that riders not in a sleeper, especially those sitting in coach thru one or two overnights, can't be "land cruising". They're simply trying to get from here to there as best they can.
Surely no one will claim Chicago-Kansas City (the number one city pair) as a "land cruise"; it's a corridor served by a LD train. Even ABQ-L.A., (the second most popular segment) at 924 miles with one overnight, hardly seems a "land cruise" since it sails past the Grand Canyon stops.
Granted that L.A.-Flagstaff at 565 miles actually could include a lot of tourists, along with others having other reasons for going to Flagstaff or to L.A. Yet passengers traveling more than 500 but less than 600 miles (and so including for example, Chicago-Kansas stops as well as L.A.-Flagstaff), all these amount to only 8.4% of the
Chief's riders. Again this suggests that tourists are less than 10% of the
Southwest Chief's passengers. Those who might be "cruising" for a week are extremely rare.
Furthermore, the average sleeper trip is 1,391 miles, not quite 2/3rds of the end-to-end length. That's about the length of Chicago-ABQ, implying that many if not most sleeper riders have business, family and other personal, or medical reasons for traveling and they aren't heading to the Grand Canyon or Sedona.
Anyway, if you wash the hateful phrase "land cruises" out of your vocabulary, I'll try to calm down and avoid future insults.
Edited by a Moderator (compact the page).