RME Who in their right mind would want to ship their car to Vegas to drive it up and down the Strip and park it expen$ively at a hotel so as not to have to use plebeian limos or complimentary courtesy shuttles?
Who in their right mind would want to ship their car to Vegas to drive it up and down the Strip and park it expen$ively at a hotel so as not to have to use plebeian limos or complimentary courtesy shuttles?
The majority of the hotels in Las Vegas offer free parking. The resorts that are owned by MGM just started charging for parking this past summer, but anyone with any status do not have to pay for it.
An "expensive model collector"
ORNHOOHow many days do snowbirds spend driving from the upper Midwest to their winter quarters in Arizona or Southern Cal? How many people riding the present Auto train to Florida do so with the intention of staying only 3.4 nights?
Your comparing apples and oranges and I can tell you why.......
1. Past posters were correct average visit to Las Vegas is only a few days. I don't know of many people that have a Winter House in Vegas. But it doesn't take much longer than 3 days to get bored of Las Vegas.
2. Arizona has specific retirement areas around Phoenix for retired people and I hate to tell you this but none of them are near a railroad. The biggest is Sun City, AZ. Look at where it is on the map of Phoenix and where Union Station is in Phoenix. Looks a fair distance by freeway but the rush hour and freeways in Phoenix are very congested so increase travel time of what you think by 1 hour minimum. Why I had the discussion earlier that the Maricopa Station location might not have been a bad idea than maintaining what? a 40 mile passenger train spur for one train a day each way? Most people that buy a second home in Phoenix intend to retire there and buy the home near a retirement area. When your older you will understand why this is but generally it has to do with access to Emergency Services and Health Care and being able to get around once Arizona yanks your Drivers License. In Sun City they can drive Golf Carts for short trips on Public roads, does not require a drivers license and very few other Phoenix Communities allow that.
3. I don't know of many people that buy a winter home in Southern California that live in the Midwest as that is a very major real estate investment. Perhaps you do but I don't so lets cross that one off.
4. Average trip length to Florida is one week because of Disney compare that to 3 Nights as previously stated for Las Vegas and you'll begin to understand why the current existing Auto Train routing makes sense. Florida also has a lot of retirement communities so the winter home concept applies as well.
5. As it stands now most people with Winter Homes in Phoenix and Florida fly by plane to their location and have an auto transporter bring one of their cars down (you see that Auto Train is really not needed at all..........it's a luxury or nice to have).
You know you can figure this stuff out yourself by looking at the size of the rental car fleet in each state and what the average car rental duration is. That should show you that most retirements that involve a second home are Florida, Texas, NM and Arizona. Guess why that is? Because if you live in the Midwest the home that costs you $450,000 new in a 24-30 mile distance from say a Milwaukee suburb, costs almost half or 1/3 as much in one of the retirement states. I bought my 2100 sq foot home 24 miles NE of Dallas for $148,000 new in 1999 at that time a comparable home in Wisconsin 24 miles from Milwaukee was well over $300,000. My home in Texas is 95% brick, concrete drive, 1/3 acre, sprinkler system, privacy fence, landscaping and sod included as well as appliances. The $300,000 home in Wisconsin, pretty stripped down and a lot of what is included in Texas you pay for in the Midwest. Property taxes on the Midwest property approx $1500 more a year and you pay income taxes as well.
Hence you can see why folks only pick a few states to retire too. It makes really good financial sense.
ORNHOO Deggesty Currently, it would take two nights to get to Las Vegas from Chicago--and two nights to return. Add to that, the time between cutoff for loading and leaving, and the time to retrieve your car at the other end. How many days do snowbirds spend driving from the upper Midwest to their winter quarters in Arizona or Southern Cal? How many people riding the present Auto train to Florida do so with the intention of staying only 3.4 nights?
Deggesty Currently, it would take two nights to get to Las Vegas from Chicago--and two nights to return. Add to that, the time between cutoff for loading and leaving, and the time to retrieve your car at the other end.
Currently, it would take two nights to get to Las Vegas from Chicago--and two nights to return. Add to that, the time between cutoff for loading and leaving, and the time to retrieve your car at the other end.
How many days do snowbirds spend driving from the upper Midwest to their winter quarters in Arizona or Southern Cal? How many people riding the present Auto train to Florida do so with the intention of staying only 3.4 nights?
Johnny
Chicago area to Las Vegas RT would take far too long for most folks wanting to go there. The average number of nights' stay in 2015 was 3.4 nights.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Once upon a time around the early 1990's, the Amtrak's Marketing Dept explored the possibility of putting auto carriers on the SW Chief between Chicago (or nearby) and Flagstaff, AZ. The idea was that motorists could fan out from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon, Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, or California destinations.
The whole idea came to nothing due to the impossibility of coming up with a practical schedule, lack of equipment, the need to build expensive new infrastructure for an experimental program, lack of available space for new facilities in Fragstaff, limited hotel accommodations in Flagstaff, and other factors.
An idea is just an idea until it collides with practical realities. If it overcomes them, it becomes a plan. It it doesn't, it's a pipe dream.
Tom
Cost for a New Auto Train just on Equipment and Facilities alone (6 trainsets) is probably going to run you at least $500 million, then you have the operating subsidy. It's probably the same reason they never restarted Louisville, KY to Sandford, Florida Auto-Train service.
Who in their right mind would want to ship their car to Vegas to drive it up and down the Strip and park it expen$ively at a hotel so as not to have to use plebeian limos or complimentary courtesy shuttles? Must be that family-friendly aspect I have never quite recognized in the casino-gaming world.
Now, if you had something like a California Zephyr Auto-Train going from some point reasonably convenient to large chunks of the SF and LA regions that went through Vegas, you might have something that some people might come to use. But absent cruise-train amenities or Ed Ellis grade comp service for recognized high rollers, I don't really see even a regular 'casino train' from Chicago or Denver being much of a draw over the alternatives, let alone one with the overhead involved in handling vehicles.
There is also the question of opportunity cost. Full Auto-Train consists, in enough number to run a reasonable number of days of the week, could be used more successfully in many other prospective service corridors than ones going to Vegas as a terminal attraction.
Would Amtrak ever consider adding an Auto Train service to Vegas? Ideally from Chicago or Denver.
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