Sorry about that one my goof on the ski train. I must have crossed the old Ski Train with the new ski train.
Cowford wrote:PS: How do you figure the 40-60k estimate?
Let's start with an estimate of the correct order of magnitude. We know that the population of Maine is about 1.3 million of which approximately half or better live south of Augusta.
In our selection of a possible estimate we have the following orders of magnitude to choose from which are obvious enough... 1,000k, 100k, 10k, or 1k. We know based anecdotal evidence that there are thousands of tourists from Quebec that come to Maine every year, with a high concentration of visitors to Old Orchard Beach, among other destinations.
If we assume that a train service offering would be competitive enough to actually draw a few passengers we can narrow down our available orders of magnitude. 1,000k as this order probably represents the entire travel market, even including short trips across the border in places like Jackman. So now we are left with 100k, 10k, or 1k orders of magnitude. Keep in mind these figures represent a range (100k=100,000-999,999).
I felt your initial calculation of 4,000 only represented the casual/leisure travel market. I also felt there was additional potential for incremental travel. If I made the assumption that 1. leisure travel might only represent a small portion of the potential travel market (somewhere between 5-33%) and 2. there would be an increase in travel to and from Montreal we start arriving at the 10k order of magnitude. Let's say casual travel is 33% of the market, then total passengers would be 12,000 @ 4,000 leisure. But remember your figures only included Mainers. So let's assume the exchange is roughly equal, now we have 8,000 leisure travelers total which at 33% of total means 24,000 riders.
Working into these numbers a little further if we assume skiing ridership and not just summer ridership as you initially did let's say that increases ridership by 50% from Quebec, meaning 4,000 becomes 6,000 and let's say it increases by ridership by 25% from Maine, as some people may be more likely to drive because they're closer, etc. so that's another 1,000. So now our leisure travel is at 11,000 which @ 33% of ridership makes total ridership about 33,000. I happen to believe that leisure travel at 33% is extreme. I believe there is a business travel component composed of weekly commuters some college or exchange students, and also people visiting their families which I wouldn't necessarily include in the leisure travel market, which to me is more about the tourists. Being generous let's round the numbers down to somethig more like 25% leisure travel, this gets us to a low range of 44,000 total ridership per year. I am most definitely postulating that there would be an incremental increase in discretionary travel as a result of this new option. Some of it by people who simply aren't comfortable driving this route in the winter.