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Amtrak cancels Empire Builder out of fear of Xanto

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@VerMontanan: First of all, I'm not against passenger trains. I grew up with them and use them as often as possible. But I think Amtrak's LD trains are not economical and in some areas almost useless for short distance traveling. Passenger rail and health care is comparing apples and oranges. Loss of passenger rail is at best inconvenient, not having health care can be a question of life and death on a daily basis. I mentioned the German experience with system shutdowns affection 11.9 million people daily to show that even then life went on only less comfortable. So I don't understand the complaining about two or three cancelled Empire Builders. Better safe than sorry. I said that those going the whole distance are mostly tourist. Which business man in his right mind would travel more than 2000 miles to a meeting on a slow Amtrak train? I count those to whom the ay is the reward as tourists. Your 700+ miles average trip length doesn't tell anything. According RPA up to 99 miles are 5.3%, 100 - 199 mi. 14.2%, 200 - 299 mi. 14.8%; 700 - 799 mi. are just 2.5%. <a href="https://www.railpassengers.org/all-aboard/tools-info/ridership-statistics/">https://www.railpassengers.org/all-aboard/tools-info/ridership-statistics/</a> And than by Route and Empire Builder. If Amtrak wants to increase the ridership they need to get them in 0 - 299 mi. segment and that doesn't work with one train daily. I don't think that a second train will do. That's my opinion. I don't need to be an American citizen to see and understand the problems passenger train services has in the USA. The German government has to have a hand in passenger trains as public transportion is laid down in our constitution. The largest problem seems to me that Amtrak (With a few exceptions) doesn't own the tracks it runs. Amtrak is more or less at the mercy of the class 1s while in Germany passenger trains have absolute priority. That is why I said more Amtrak trains might be problematic with freight railroad. That is my opinion, you can share it or not. I beg one favor: Before you acuse me of making false statements again, do your homework yourself and don't cite only numbers from a statistic that suit your opinion. Regards, Volker
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