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One thing is that some of the "Other" include museums or historical organizations, sometimes a foundation named after the station itself. So I put those in "Other", while things that seemed to be for-profit businesses I put in "Private", but a few times I guessed at that.

The information about the individual station is all in the great spreadsheet, I just made a graph to review. There are all sorts of weird edge cases, but hopefully when viewed in total, it gives a good general impression. The three federal stations are Washington DC, and two owned by the...

I started making a tally sheet by going through the wikipedia articles for stations one by one, but that spreadsheet really sped up the process! This chart has so many asterisks attached, but I think it gives an interesting way to start to think about the data. Cities are the single largest...

It appears the information is out there...now all I need to do is make a graph of it! It would probably be a lot harder to draw any conclusions based on the data, though.

I imagine that Portland to Oregon City itself is not that big of a route. The target audience is probably people in the Seattle area visiting somewhere in the Portland area, but who want a stop a little south of downtown Portland. But looking at the last year with statistics (2022, which of...

Myself, and several others, got a chuckle out of what I imagine is the cheapest fare you can currently book on Amtrak---from Portland Union Station to Oregon City. The trip is cheaper, and much quicker, than trying to get to Oregon City on local transit! More seriously, though, as the Amtrak...

I guess my problem here was using the word "intrinsically" because theoretically, just about anything can be made comfortable. I guess what I meant is that within what is realistically economically possible, it is a lot easier to put a reclining seat on a bus than it is to put one on a plane...

This might seem like a minor question, but I think it is interesting, and might have important implications. In another thread, I happened to mention that Amtrak doesn't own many of their stations---and I got curious, and looked it up, and apparently Amtrak owns almost none of their stations...

In Chile, I took an overnight "semicama" bus, with 2-1 seating, and with a chair that reclined far enough back to almost be a bed. (Thus, "semicama" and not "cama".). It included meal service (basic dinner and breakfast with drinks) served by a steward. It cost about 50 dollars for a 12 hour...

One question about a rail company bringing back passenger trains is---what that even means in 2024, when companies both form alliances and spin off subsidiaries. If Union Pacific did have passenger trains, it probably wouldn't call them "Union Pacific", it would probably brand them and manage...

Here is another one where I take a train---even though I didn't plan to. Even after several months here, I still find myself getting myself in trouble by underestimating the distances between places. In this video, I go from Heredia to Alajuela, both suburbs to the NW of San Jose. It is 6 miles...

Well, this thread might allow me to say something I've bottled up for a while. On several Amtrak or rail/transit communities, I often wonder why so many people complain about the minor inconveniences, or even the major inconveniences, of train travel. I understand why those things bother...

Oh, that makes a lot of sense! Actually, the only time I have ridden the Amtrak Cascades business class was for just that reason---my father had had a serious heart attack, and my mother thought I needed to have a comfortable environment when travelling from Montana to Vancouver, WA, so that is...

There was very cold temperatures there recently, followed by a thaw, so probably some sort of rain on snow event. Its pretty extreme and atypical weather for the region.

And just to put everything into perspective, I thought I would include this map, from Compare Countries With This Simple Tool This shows Costa Rica compared to the Washington DC region. So, for example, my trip to Turrialba isn't that much different rom going from Washington, DC to...

On my trip on Wednesday to Paraiso, I saw a bus go by with a sign that said "Turrialba", and that got me thinking... Paraiso is the last city in the San Jose metro area, more or less. Past that, you climb into the mountains, and eventually get to Turrialba. On a map, it is 24 linear miles, and...

I might be old fashioned, but spending $50 extra to get a $3 (or even $4) discount on a $6 bagel (or however much they charge now) doesn't seem like the wisest use of money! But of course, there are business travellers who have a lot more money than me. But more relevantly, I guess I was...

Yesterday, I went to Paraiso ("Paradise"), a town to the east of San Jose. I have a video, but since it doesn't have a lot of rail content, I am not posting it here. Paraiso is the last station to the east on the San Jose-Cartago line, but it currently has exactly three departures, and two...

From this, it looks like the business class tickets fluctuate with demand. I am wondering what business class offer that is worth (in some cases) tripling the ticket price, but obviously, for some people, it is worth it.

I am not particularly well-informed on the economics of airlines, but I know that with any large business, the accounting and finances can get pretty opaque, and that it is easy enough for any business to show a profit when it is actually losing money long term---or to show a loss when it is...