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[quote user="Los Angeles Rams Guy"] [quote user="Sam1"] I rode the Empire Builder from Milwaukee to Portland in December 2006.  It was one of my better trips on Amtrak.  The winter scenery was spectacular.  I had a roomette, which was OK.  The Superliner roomettes are not the most comfortable accommodation in the world, but they are passable.  The service was good.  The wine tasting for first class passengers was very enjoyable.  The only real downer was that approximately half of the toilets on the train froze up and the crew could not free them. In FY08 the Empire Builder lost 9.9 cents per passenger mile before interest, depreciation, and other charges.  For the first six months of FY09 it lost 17.8 cents per passenger mile before interest and depreciation.  Part of the increase in the loss in FY09 is due to an accounting change. A passenger traveling from Chicago to Seattle during the first six months of FY09 received a federal subsidy payment of $392.67 before interest and depreciation or approximately $491.93 including all allocated items.  In FY08 the subsidy would have been $218.39 and $240.23. The financial performance of the Empire Builder is better than any of Amtrak's long distance trains save the Auto Train.  Taxpayers should ride the train; they are paying for it irrespective of whether they use it.  If Amtrak was a real business, it would fly each passenger from Chicago to Seattle for an average fare of $164, thereby saving the federal treasury $327.93 for each passenger carried end point to end point.  Long distance trains are a 1950s anachronism.  They should be discontinued and the funds wasted on them should be re-directed toward the enhancement or development of moderate speed corridors where they make sense. [/quote] I've had two enjoyable trips on the Empire Builder - one from the Twin Cities to Glasgow, Montana back in '78 (when it still used the former GN mainline between Minneapolis and Fargo) and then again in '81 from La Crosse, Wisconsin to Glasgow; by this time Amtrak was operating on the former NP mainline between the Twin Cities and Fargo. You know what, Sam, you're right.  Let's just rip it all up; pull em' all up.  This country doesn't need passenger trains.  I mean, SO WHAT if passenger rail is environmentally friendly and highway gridlock is increasingly worsening.  And I guess we can just ignore the success stories of operations such as New Mexico's Rail Runner Express and the new commuter rail service that's set to start here in Minnesota later this year.  And all those efforts to try and get Amtrak service re-established between Chicago and Dubuque and hopefully extended to Waterloo can just be abandoned now, too.  Thank you so much, Sam, for bringing your anti-passenger train, anti-rail garbage on a thread that celebrates the history, tradition, and heritage of a cherished American icon. Idiot. [/quote] Had you taken the time to read a representative sample of my posts, you would have learned that I favor passenger rail in relatively short, high density corridors.  My recent post on the New Mexico Rail Runner is a good example. Long distance trains, however, are a loser, and they should be discontinued.  The funds wasted on them could be re-directed to the enhancement of existing corridors or the development of new ones. By your definition, the only people who should write a post to these forums are those who see only the positive side of passenger rail and ignore its negative aspects, including cost issues.  Intemperate language is not likely to dissuade me from offering critical comments (positive and negative) on various aspects of passenger rail.
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