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  • Zephyr Day Trip Sacramento - Reno Trip Report

  • Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.
Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.

Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, mtuandrew, Tadman

 #1568148  by Jeff Smith
 
Nice write-up. Wonder if they market to day riders?

https://theorion.com/86299/arts/zephyr- ... -expected/
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The train was delayed by four hours so we passed the time in a sandwich shop in the train station where they were playing music from the ’70s. It was a long wait but it was worth it.

We had the train car all to ourselves on the way there, and only a handful of people joined us on the trip back to Sacramento. The space allowed us to marvel at the sights freely together. We had plenty of legroom in between the rows of seats — at least double the legroom of a plane. Each ticket cost about $90.

The train we took was the California Zephyr. It made stops in Roseville, Colfax and Truckee, before arriving in Reno. The higher up we went in elevation, the more stunning and gorgeous the views became. We saw bright, sunlit woodsy meadows, farmland, mountains, huge pine trees, a lake and the Truckee River, which flowed right beside us. We went through several dark tunnels. The views also changed from bright green grass to snowy mountains, and the skies went from sunshine to thick cloud cover. At first, there was no snow anywhere. Gradually, we started seeing patches of snow higher up and then maybe a foot of snow on either side of the train.
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 #1568496  by electricron
 
"We had the train car all to ourselves on the way there, and only a handful of people joined us on the trip back to Sacramento."
Does not sound like a successful business, nor reducing environmental pollution.
Two people being transported by a multiple car train with 4000 HP locomotive seems so much a waste of resources when the same two people can get there in a small car using 100 HP hybrid gasoline engine. What they did was like taking an armored tank to a knife fight.

Do not get me wrong here, trains can reduce pollution and save on resources transporting people and goods around, but to do so they probably need to have 50%-100% loads. Two passengers on a train capable of carrying 200+ passengers is 1% load. Huh?

Just because something can save money and resources does not mean it will.
 #1568533  by Literalman
 
The story said they had one car to themselves, not the whole train. If the rest of the cars had two passengers each, then, yes, the train was sadly empty. But we don't know that from the story.
 #1568579  by electricron
 
A Superliner coach car could have a capacity of 74 passengers, still terrible below 3% capacity (2/74 x 100 = 2.7%).
But I will admit the car in question could fill up later on this train's long linear run in Illinois. ;)
Trains are linear much like bus routes, it can appear empty or full depending when you look.
Never-the-less, the Bay Area to Reno is where this train usually gets full.