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[quote user="dakotafred"] Yawn. If these LD trains were running around empty, I'd agree to ax 'em. The LD trains I have ridden -- mainly in the fall, which is to say in the off season -- have been well patronized. Given that -- and that, to my mind, passenger trains are so intimately connected with our national development and even identity -- I could care less about the cost/benefit per mile or their paltry half-billion (out of a 3-plus trillion budget) contribution to our spending. I wish you green-eyeshade types would be more zealous in getting after "waste" in other areas. But you Obama voters approve of much of that -- which makes your moral position no better than mine.  [/quote] The average load factor for the long distance trains in FY13 was 62.9 per cent.  The average load factor for the Empire Builder, which I presume is the train that you ride most frequently, which assumes further that you live in one of the Dakotas, was 60 per cent. The problem for the long distance trains, as noted, is not the load factor.  It is that Amtrak cannot charge enough to generate sufficient revenues to cover the cost of the long distance trains.
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