Tadman wrote:ryanov wrote:
Would be nice if trains stayed nice. The dollar amount is rounding error in the budget. I can't believe that this much time and energy is spent looking into "how to save people a couple of dollars of year," more or less, but I guess that's this "great country" we live in.
I think this speaks a lot to human psychology. The same people that shell out $1200 for a sleeper for a few nights can't shell out so few more bucks for a decent meal in the diner? $1200 tickets and $100/night for dinner is too much? We're not talking about superbudget travel here.
But it's the same culture that will buy a $50k SUV and fail to change the tires or shocks on time because "it's too expensive".
Maybe a diner isn’t that necessary on a trip with just one night with an afternoon departure and a morning arrival. Eating a snack, sandwich, or pizza that one night isn’t going to turn off many riders. But that changes on the West Coast with two and possibly more night trips. It’s one thing to skimp on one meal, it’s another when your talking about four, five, or six meals.
I frequently ride the Eagle to L.A. and the Starlight to Seattle from Dallas, three nights on the trains with nine guaranteed meals.
1) dinner near Austin
2) breakfast near Del Rio
3) lunch near Alpine
4) dinner near Lordsburg
5) breakfast (if running hours late*) near Palm Springs
6) lunch near Santa Barbara
7) dinner near Salinas
8) breakfast near Klamath Falls
9) lunch near Eugene
10) dinner near Olympia